1
Ethan travelled light. He had been doing that for two months now, ever since the news came to him that his parents had gone. That was but a couple of weeks before final uni work on his master’s degree in engineering had been completed. He had been told that they had perished after being encircled by a bushfire, set alight deliberately, and it had wrecked the family home along with others close-by. All that remained had been a mound of charred timber and piles of ash. Identifying the bodies had been achieved from wedding rings, the wearer’s names engraved upon them. He’d gotten through, somehow, and had decided on a trek along the Queensland coast to soothe his mind and to live out the beginnings of a new life without them.
He’d be reliant on himself, alone, and keep off the well-travelled roads; follow coastal paths and the long stretches of beaches. He’d stop wherever, and whenever, he fancied. He’d rough it and sleep on a mat that was rolled up and fixed to his small haversack. Beach shorts, a few T’s or iconic vests, and some swimming shorts and briefs would see him through. He would; shower at beach places and would clean himself up if the sea didn’t achieve that. H he’d shave when it was necessary, and look a tad wilder, now that his hair had grown long. It was tied back in a small ponytail, but it was clean and sun-bleached. His feet had hardened, and he had only been obliged to wear trainers, or some beach sandals, whenever he had to trek along rough paths or scorching hot roads, thumbing a lift.
He was a twenty-five; had started his degrees late, but he had flourished. Now, he knew only too well how to get by; had the money to do what he chose. He hadn’t wanted it to be this way, but that was how the cards had fallen.
His iPhone was the only means of being contacted and few people did that now; he’d cut loose from everything and relied on his artist’s skills and a sharp penknife to amuse himself when a place was happened upon that he wanted to capture. Some work even sold, there and then, on the spot. He carved small pieces of driftwood. He’d fashioned a necklace by threading some shark’s teeth onto a leather lace. He wore it now.
In his sack he had a small magnifying glass that he’d often use to light a fire, but in summer that was far too risky to go doing that except on a beach and keeping the fire small.
He roughed it. He was getting happier again by the day, but he would never forget. He also wanted someone a little special in his life, and for her he had never stopped looking.
Yeah, he roughed it and he got by. He found that the pain and sense of loss was slowly easing and not always on his mind, If he happened on company he would linger a while until that played out. Those ways suited them both. Such hook ups were but a surrogate for the bigger plan.
And now, he walked at the edge of the surf, the sun’s heat on his oiled skin, the straps of his haversack digging into the bare flesh of his shoulders, his eyes cast down to see if anything grabbed his attention. Any thoughts of food were dismissed as the last resort was already some miles behind him. Ahead lay headlands in the haze;, and a long curving beach with stands of palm trees at the low crests of the dunes. All of it was beautiful but only too desolate.
2
Melissa couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. She had been sketching the scene before her and had just begun to apply the first wash of water colour, as a base to the picture she wanted to create. She’d arrived at daybreak and parked her small 4WD in a hollow of the dunes, its sturdy construction coping easily with the rutted track that led from the coastal highway some way off.
The small speck at the edge of the sweeping beach was someone intent on solitude, just as she was. Even with the glare off the beach, and the thinning haze, she was left in no doubt.
‘This is a turn up, Melissa Tamblin…no mistake.’
Every Wednesday, during the balmy summer months, she came to her special secret stretch of Queensland beach along with lunch and drinks. She also brought her artist’s tools along with a few of her ‘pleasure toys’, all of them charged up and ready to be played with if she was minded to do that.
A friend back in Mackay had called her, ‘the beautiful Melissa…a MILF in waiting.’ Anna, her arty friend, had gotten part of that right. She’d been for her morning’s skinny dip, and now, with her body tingling from the salt and surf she was sitting on the large beach towel, her naked body slowly drying off under the sun. A floppy brimmed straw hat protected her head and strikingly blonde hair.
‘Come on…don’t keep me waiting,’ she muttered, holding up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she continued to watch the progress of the tiny figure in the distance. Praise be if it’s a virile young guy, she thought, as she studied the little dark spot on the long white beach.
She possessed an only too vivid imagination and agile fingers. Who was to know if she rubbed her pleasure spot for a few moments? She wondered if she’d have to cover herself when the object of her attention was near and could take in her carefully tended, firm breasted naked body; her tummy muscles nicely toned and her slender legs not too fleshy.
There was a first time for everything, and she had never seen anyone on her beach in all the years that she’d lived close to this stretch of sand. There had been the occasional wild dog to contend with, even a few ‘roos, but no one like the object of her continuing attention.
‘Stop it, you wasted woman…’
She gave voice to her thoughts as her fingers brushed over her neatly shaved mons, tugged on the spiral of hair she had left, as a marker. She imagined an only too sexy and diverting scenario play out in her mind…a handsome and well-hung lover coming to see to her and who would use her body as if she were his whore, both of them surprised by a chance meeting and all that would surely follow if she had her way, and he was right for it.
The little human spec in the distance was slowly getting bigger… getting closer…any thoughts of painting quite forgotten.
She had just turned forty-three and had never gotten used to being thrown aside by her husband, a guy who had simply walked out on her and their daughter. He had been tracked down and she had taken him for a wad that eased her life, and until she found her way again. She’d been resourceful; she was also good at art and sold well. She succeeded in that, sufficiently, to have no worries or to be tied to a straight-jacket routine. She chose to be thankful that she had her daughter, Chloe, early, when she was going on twenty-six. There was time to pick up the pieces. The only question was with whom.
Lying out here in the sun was a perfect example of that. It was a day to savour so much more, if that dot at the water’s edge made her day fly differently from all that had gone before and make her forsake the small ‘pleasure tools’ that she’d brought along. They often made her day down on the beach go a little differently from when she was alone in her bed at home.
She shielded her eyes from the sun once more; pressed her fingers to her spot and rubbed at it slowly.
‘Ooh yeah… come to me, you stranger…make my dreams become a passionate reality…fuck away my lonely ways…trash my toys and lonely ways.’
She had pretty much resigned herself to never finding a lasting partner. Being a middle-aged woman, with a teenage girl, made it difficult enough to meet anyone decent and living a few miles from the edge of town, vibrant as it was, did not help.
Over the next half hour, as the little figure grew bigger, she recognised it was a man.
‘Oh yesss,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll talk, after he’s walked over, and I may show him my work…then we’ll see it in each other’s eyes…two people alone on a beach and with one thing now on their minds.’
Her favoured vibrator was reached for even as she slipped on a sleeveless blouse where the buttons were not fastened as high as was perhaps wise. Her bikini briefs were slipped over her thighs, but one lace band at her hip left loosely fastened. It would be easily undone.
‘He’ll come to me…seduce me…take me…and fuck me hard!’ She yelled it out on a laugh.
The vibrator and her actions with it soon had her gasping in abject pleasure; the big buzzing dildo slipped in and out of her hyper-excited pussy, taking her like the mature, neglected, woman that she was. How could she have become dependent on a toy and not…not her thoughts of a young…ooh…ooh yes… a handsome young man, the sight of whom, and her raging expectancy, making her climax.
‘Oh yes….yesss!,’ she whimpered as the waves of pleasure wracked her body.
Arching her back and with the big white toy and its rounded tip kept deep within her, Melissa wallowed in the orgasm that she had brought upon herself. Feverishly, she put the toy in her straw bag and then fastened the string at her waist. She fingered out her blonde hair. A stone was put on her hat. He’d see the siren of the beach, with her tended figure; her tits not sucked into a drooping mass by her kid, but with her tummy a little creased but in a sexy way; her flyaway hair like a halo.
She’d not play the angel if he was right.
The young guy was only too close now.
‘Hi there!’ she heard a voice call out.
‘Fancy meeting you here…of all the places!’ she shouted on a laugh of disbelief that this was actually happening. She held up her iPhone and took a picture of the young man. She was acting crazy. Who would know what happened…one way or the other…seduction or an assault upon her that no one would know of?
He stood some way off as what she had done registered.
‘I’m just passing through…I won’t disturb or frighten you,’ he said calmly; his voice only too unthreatening. ‘You don’t need to take a picture of me. I’m just surprised to see you out here alone…nothing more.’
As he had drawn near, Ethan realised that the glint seen on the horizon was of the sun on the windscreen of a car parked up on low sand dunes. He now saw that it was a 4WD that he soon realised was the only viable means of transport. It looked worse for wear, and he reckoned it would have done the journey here many times before.
‘It’s as far away from crowds that you can get for a stretch here…’ Melissa said on standing up and stepping onto the hot sand, waiting to meet him. God, the guy’s so good looking…and confident with it, she thought approvingly. He was seen to be striding through the sand to be with her, his arm muscles flexing as he shrugged off his haversack and dropping it at his feet.
Melissa felt her bag tumble over. and she saw him look down. At her feet lay one of the toys she had been playing with.
‘You are way too beautiful to go using those,’ he said simply, his eyes drifting over her scarcely covered body; items of clothing that he knew he would soon want to tug away and reveal what she would bring to his gaze, even to touch what he knew would be found there. ‘And…and you paint? You’re an artist?’
He was standing only too close to her now and she had to look away. Jeez! Those eyes of his were taking her in, every little detail. Their thoughts seemed to be in sync already.
‘Yes…you interrupted me in my work.’
Her eyes darted over him too now, brazenly. She was unable to quell her interest in him nor what the young guy had so quickly aroused in her. There was something wayward about him that she simply could not ignore.
‘I’m glad that I did. Sorry, but I have to tell you that so soon…and…and my name’s Ethan Roberts.’
‘And I’m Melissa Tamblin…from Mackay.’
‘And I’m from Brisbane…though I’ve not been there for some time. I’m travelling light. I just have my memories….’
She met his soft look upon her as what he had said registered. It was an undoubtedly appraising look of stark blue eyes that went with a wonderful smile and gleam of his teeth in a deeply tanned face. He had to be living like a tramp or a wanderer as the shock of his long brown hair had been bleached by the unforgiving sun. She could also see blonde strands of hair. Ethan tugged at his vest, and it made her take in his strong arms and lean torso, along with his toned, strong legs. Her look was that of an artist, but that would be to deny what she really saw in him, a young man’s body brimming with health and vitality. It was muscular but his movements athletic, almost graceful. He could so easily pass for a surfy, but his few words on greeting, and commenting on her artist’s work, suggested that his interests were otherwise and…also in her.
She’d struck gold…pure minted and fashioned gold.
The young Adonis was wearing a pair of loose-fitting cotton shorts bleached white by sun and salt; his blue, sleeveless, wave patterned vest faded. He had been carrying the rucksack over his shoulders, a bag that looked as though it could be holding all of his earthly possessions. She could see a bedroll, a length of rolled up drawing paper, a water bottle and a compact tripod that appeared to be an artist’s easel.
The day was getting better by the minute. First a good-looking guy literally walks into her life, and now a young man who shared her interest in art stood before her and boldly giving her the eye. Just where could this go?
‘You were sunbathing…in the nuddy, weren’t you? he asked casually and on seeing Melissa tug at her flimsy blouse; the movement of sandy hands on it as she did so. He’d taken in the unmistakable outline of her nipples and the swell of her firm breasts through the fabric. ‘I’d sketch that look of yours…if the moment came, Melissa…I’d sure like that.’
She laughed at his forwardness.
‘We’ll have to see, won’t we? You’re rushing it…’ Her body was already aching for more.
She moved to put on her sunglasses, wondered how much he had seen of her naked body and how it gleamed from the light application of sun tan oil. She had tended her looks for a moment just like this, the wild spontaneity of it. She’d worked to get an almost flat tummy and her long legs weren’t too fleshy, just yet. She was voluptuous, one of the few things that her ex had said by way of offering her a compliment.
‘May I see what you’re working on?’ The way he spoke, on a tilt of the head, engaged her. How he moved to take off his vest kept her from doing as he asked. ‘I checked that you’d stopped working…’
She flicked at her mussed hair. ‘Yeah, I wondered who’d be crazy enough to be walking out here on his own…’
Ethan grinned. ‘I could ask the same of you. A guy would have to be a mongrel to let you go out here in the wild on your own…’
‘It happened. I’m through it now.’ She bent down, suddenly, to grab at her drawing pad. She felt that his eyes were on her. They stood now in the shelter of a low rocky bluff, the soft breeze rustling the leaves of the stunted palm trees on its crest. ‘How about you…out on the beach on your own?’
‘Not any more…’ Ethan saw how her tanned skin seemed to glow; her body toned and voluptuous; her slender face softly lined around the eyes; creases at her lips when she smiled. ‘My people got burned in a bush fire and so I took off. I’m out here working it out of my system. It’s been a tough few weeks…really tough.’ She saw him shrug, a moment’s pain to be seen in his eyes and in the set of his features. ‘That’s how it goes…’
‘I’m sorry…’
‘You…have you got any kids?’
‘A daughter. She’s younger than you…makes her life back in Mackay as best she can in the tourist world…in the holidays. She’s finishing college and will then move on, no doubt.’ She gave an audible sigh. ‘There, the intro’s are over, I reckon…’
‘Sure…my thoughts too,’ he replied evenly. ‘I interrupted your sunbathing.’ He had sure taken in that a naked woman was resting on her elbows and watching him get closer; that she only moved at the last possible moment. ‘Your red lipstick goes well with your fingernails and,’ he looked at her sand-covered feet, ‘your toenails…all a vibrant apple red.’
‘You got it,’ she smiled. ‘Here…look at my work…will you?’
‘I’ll do both…’ she heard him say and on an overt look of appraisal. ‘Do as you were doing before…’
‘Winding you up?’ she teased on a sly smile.
‘It cuts both ways, Melissa…or is it Mel…or Lisa?’ Ethan gasped as she lifted the blouse up and over her head; saw the sun in Melissa’s hair as she moved, then the sway and tumble of her breasts along with their soft indolent sag. The curve of her hips only accentuated the sheer cut of her bikini briefs, some of the fabric, he saw, marking the line of her crack. He felt his legs shake; the sight of this older woman’s body arousing him. It soon had his cock harden in his shorts. He looked at her evenly. ‘Jeez, Mel…I wasn’t expecting any of this…a beaut on the beach and miles from anywhere.’
‘It cuts both ways, Ethan…’
‘Does it?’
She heard it in his voice and saw it in his continuing, wondering looks upon her. Melissa saw the swell in his shorts and how he moved awkwardly before her. The pictures she had been working on were ignored. Ethan was looking at her, appraisingly. She moved slowly to unfasten the binding of her bikini briefs to one hip but looked at him for an instant, a smile soon to be seen as she indicated that he should do likewise.
‘I’ll go nuddy again…if you will, Ethan. Who’s to see…except…except you and me?’ She brushed her fingers over his chest for only an instant, to persuade him to do as she asked, before she did what was expected of her.
‘You wonder…you beaut,’ he said in a deeper, disbelieving voice as he looked at her. Ethan fumbled at the buckle of his belt, then unbuttoned his shorts and in a single sweep of his hands pushed them and his swimming briefs down to the sand. He felt her fingers on his shoulders as he moved to stand up; he heard her gasp on seeing his prick spring free and gently arc out in front of him. ‘No secrets now…and I sure can’t keep how I feel from you..’
‘There weren’t any the moment we met.’ She looked at him wonderingly. ‘Want a drink?’
He was startled by the change in tack. ‘Oh, yeah…yeah sure…okay, thanks.’
‘There’s no rush, Ethan…not for me any way.’
‘No, I guess not,’ he laughed, yet unable to take his eyes off her tanned body, the swell of those firm breasts and dark nipples, along with her toned tummy and long legs. It was becoming too much to endure. ‘I’ll look at you, though…’
‘Slow is best…’
He nodded. He had seen his fair share of nudists on his walking tour, some of the women pretty good looking and younger than Melissa was. But none had that air of sexiness about them or a brazen nature that she displayed for his benefit. He was stepping out onto new ground…going with an older woman, an arty type much as he was. He really couldn’t age her and really didn’t care how old she was. He ogled her and thought this almost ebony-skinned woman, with her flyaway hair, to be goddess…a woman who’d work him till he had nothing left to give.
‘Are you having trouble?’ she smiled, her softly voiced question prompted by seeing him grip his prick for an instant as if to quell what she too felt.
He nodded and kept doing what she had seen for a moment longer.
‘Are you really alone…there’s no one in your life?’ he asked as she moved to look into a cool bag that he had failed to notice, and that was set by a wicker basket on the sand, the edge of her beach towel draped over it.
‘Quite alone…now. Here, have a cold one,’ she bossed in a deep raspy voice that made Ethan shiver. He took the can that she held out to him. ‘We’ll have to share it…I hadn’t planned on meeting someone like you. It makes all of this all the better for me…’
‘Hopes and reality have just become one…I guess.’ Melissa pressed the can to his belly and Ethan jumped away out of reach, on a laugh. ‘Hey!’
‘Cool down, some…we go for a swim together…then we can play,’ she said sipping on the drink and meeting his gaze upon her. ‘The shade of the trees up there will be the place for us, I reckon…’
He took the can that she held out to him.
‘You really are someone special. You really don’t care, do you? I could have been anyone walking along the beach. It was crazy for you to do that alone…’
He had put an arm about her waist and drawn Melissa to him. All she did was brush the fingers of one hand lightly over his belly and flicked a glance down at what he would bring to her but did not touch. She heard his sharp intakes of breath and she eased in her slow claims upon him.
Melissa felt a charge of excitement. Ethan had failed to keep from her what he could bring; she’d seen it as he strode ever closer to where she had been seated and watching him. That he was as excited by the sight of her body as she was with his, had soon broken any remaining sense of restraint; excitement and anticipation now coursed through her veins. It sharpened the ache of longing in her belly. To feel him against her thrilled her to the core. Ethan’s attention had been focussed on her and she had taken in all that he would bring. She’d not seen anything like it on those she’d been with. The glistening tip of that fleshy pole kept touching her hip, then belly as they stood close.
‘I have my reasons for being here, Ethan…’ she told him finally. Melissa watched him as he tipped his head back and drank thirstily. Dreamily, she brushed the drips that fell from his lips onto his hairless, smooth and taut, chest. She felt dizzy with desire and had to resist the urge to reach down and grab that big cock that pressed against her thigh. ‘Haven’t I already told you?’
‘No…even if you have, tell me again? He handed back the can and it was his turn to caress skin where the drops of drink fell. She held his head to them as he bent to kiss her firm nipples. ‘You wonder…wonder…wonder!’
Melissa lifted away her sunglasses and met that wondering look of his upon her. She knew that she had really hooked him; that this would not be an opportunistic fuck and that he’d then leave. She wouldn’t allow that until she’d gone some way and then a heck of a lot more.
‘I’m alone, Ethan…’
‘As I am…my folks are both gone…got took in a bush fire some two, and a bit, months ago. I struck out and travelled. Decided to go way up state and then travel back down to Briz and not worry about how long it took. I’ve moved north and south…as the need or the lifts took me…or whom I met.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that…’ she said nestling against him.
‘That feels good,’ he smiled looking down into her upturned face. ‘May I?’
She nodded; met his kiss that deepened. Melissa groaned. ‘I said a swim first…’
‘Wait,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve got no base and I carry what I can on my back, and I see where it takes me…’
‘Or whom you may meet takes you…’
‘Yeah, that too. I hope there aren’t too many like you along the way…’
She smiled. ‘It only takes one to make you really stop, Ethan…’
‘I’m beginning to realise that too, Melissa…already.’
Melissa’s tanned skin and her long slender legs with a fleshy firmness to her thighs; that thin line of pubic hair; those full, still firm breasts that swayed tantalisingly when she moved; Melissa’s long hair with its richer colours picked out by the late morning sun and that wonderful, smiling mouth! He was inflamed by the sight of her.
He felt her ease out of his embrace and take the can from his grip. ‘Swim…then we have a different kind of fun!’
He met her wondering glance upon him. She had seen his stilled eyes take in every detail of her body and had seen no shame, only wonder. It was a look upon her that she had not seen for such a long time.
‘Come on then!’ he hollered.
On a laugh they ran into the almost still, clear water and plunged in.
3
Exhilaration overwhelmed her as she plunged into the water and looked around for him; she soon saw Ethan swim strongly towards her and close the space between them. They smiled and swam. She felt him pass under her body and she looked into the water to see the trail of bubbles as he passed under her, the lightest of touches offered to her body…from her feet, over her thighs and belly, to the tumble of her breasts; finally her face.
‘Ethan!’ she laughed out, seeking to stand on the soft sand before she was out of her depth.
He passed under her again and Melissa jumped up, enough to allow him to pass between her legs. They looked at each other and moved to swim close, to repeat the actions that he had begun. His hands were on her hips, and they rolled in the soft swell, then parted. They touched and moved away; she felt him hard against her body and when she had to stop to catch her breath Ethan drew her to him.
‘So strong…so full,’ she kissed, her arms and legs soon wrapped around his body. She felt her breath crushed from her as he held her to him. She had reached down to find that rod of flesh; moved to feel it brush against her slit. ‘This is crazy…so wonderfully crazy! I’ve only just met you, but I want…’
‘You want to be with me and to fuck…?’
‘How did you guess!’ she laughed and rose in his arms. She felt the strength in his hands as he held her and offered kisses to her body before she slipped down against him. ‘Keep on doing that!’
‘Are you sure?’ he grinned before she silenced him with her kisses.
Melissa felt herself being lifted high again and she looked down into his smiling face; met the lustful look of his eyes and soon felt the nipping kisses and sucks on her breasts before she met the claims of his lips and tongue to her mouth once more. The swell rocked them against each other’s bodies and Ethan stumbled before he regained his balance.
‘Jeez! I want you and now,’ His eyes were stilled upon her, as if challenging her to deny that it could happen here, in the water. She felt his penis brush against her opening.
‘Under the trees…come…come with me!’ She broke out of his embrace and strode through the surf and brushed away his questing hands. She ran to where she had been seated watching him and gathered up what was needed. ‘Bring what you want…but I sure hope you’ve got rubbers with you?’
He restrained and kissed her; dug his fingers into Melissa’s hips and bum cheeks to press her against his length. He sought her kisses and caressed between her bum cheeks. He felt her squirm out of longing and to keep him from fingering where no one had ever been allowed to go.
‘Nowhere near enough!’ he gasped and broke away from her,
♠
The breeze rustled the leaves; dappled shade was to be found on the low outcrop of rock where the towels had been quickly spread and that their questing claims upon each other allowed.
Melissa soon sat on them, her knees raised and offering Ethan a glimpse of where she now urged him to be or where she sought his attention. The sexual tension was unbearable.
‘Come here, Ethan…put it on in a moment…bring all that you know to me?’
That this gorgeous young guy was here at all still felt unreal; like she was in a dream and now anything was possible. She lay back on the towels, reclining on her elbows, both knees up and with her legs spread wide. She soon felt his lips and tongue trace a path over her skin and then claim her, his fingers expertly parting swollen lips before they entered…her gasps of wanton longing soon stilled by his lips.
‘We’ve got all day…all day,’ he caressed.
‘Let me live out this moment…now!’ she gasped, her fingers digging into Ethan’s shoulders. She lifted her hips from the towels to meet his ravaging mouth and tongue, then the plunge of that prick deep into her. Neither of them needed to prolong the moments of foreplay; they had endured that from the moment of their first meeting.
‘Lust…at first sight,’ she saw him smile before Melissa claimed him.
4
‘It’s been crazy…it’s all been crazy,’ she murmured, her lips pressed to Ethan’s mouth as they shared in their body heat. She lay on him, her breasts pressed against his chest, her belly against his and she felt the coarse hair, that Ethan’s prick sprang from brush her slit. ‘You’ll run out of rubbers…’
‘We will,’ he grinned om pulling gently on the tumble of Melissa’s hair so that he could look into her eyes.
She lay down on him again.
‘Where did you come from anyway? she asked huskily, basking blissfully in his embrace, her body aching from a prolonged and frenetic rut. ‘You’re absolutely miles from anywhere you know..?’
Melissa knew this stretch of beach was almost impossible to access from anywhere but a narrow track through the sugarcane plantation that the farmer used and did not bar access to. Ethan would have to walk for miles, and hours, to get to any form of village and a place to rest up. Behind the coastal plain were the hills and rainforest with few settlements.
He tried to move her from him. ‘Got to pee…’
‘Go on then,’ she smiled, soon looking up at him as Ethan stood over her, his flaccid length still glistening from her wetness. Melissa touched herself and Ethan knelt down.
‘I’ll help you with that, again…’ he smiled, a hand brushing her cheeks and smoothing away her hair. Her slender face beguiled him; the look of wonder, or was it dismay, still to be seen in her eyes. ‘I could stay a while around here…be close to you if that suited you and your plans? I… I’ve been walking… walking for ages… weeks, drawing and painting,’ he stammered, gazing at her amazing body sprawled out before him and as Melissa moved under his slow touches to where she had taken him. ‘I’m a painter…not quite an artist like you are…beauty and craft…passion and sensitivity all in here.’
Melissa clutched his hand to her breast, at her heart.
‘Go…go,’ she whispered. She could get lost over the young man who had simply strolled into her life. Could it really be so easy to fall for someone? ‘Don’t be long….’
♠
She felt him kneel behind her as she sat with her knees bent and leaning on them. She had been gazing out to sea and then along the deserted shoreline and wondered at how this young stud of a man had simply walked into her life and turned it over. She never could deny it, that she was a lusty woman and in need of all that he had brought to her and that he had done so unashamedly and wondrously.
‘Use some of these,’ she asked and handing him cleansing tissues, the faint smell of cologne soon on the air. ‘Wrap the condom in it…’ She heard a soft chuckle after she’d said it. ‘Yes, I have more…’
Ethan embraced her and she leant back against him; settled between his thighs and clutched his hands as they cupped her breasts.
‘You are company for me,’ she told him simply.
‘And that it should be this way surprises me, Melissa…’
She half turned in his embrace to see his look upon her, then the slow meeting of their lips in a kiss. Melissa shivered on feeling him press against her and she reached for it once more.
‘Please… please, Ethan…not just yet,’ begged Melissa. ‘Let me just see…and touch you. I could draw you…do that here and now?’
‘I’ve cracked onto you…can’t tell it any other way.’
She nodded, turning to sit on one hip for a moment. Her lover was quite simply ‘like no other’; his thick trembling prick refusing to go limp. Her lover seemed to be in a permanent state of arousal, and he lusted after her. Melissa reached for his hand as he stroked his shaft with her looking on, the smooth skin of the tip glistening. His lustful eyes were again upon her, his handsome young face distorted with lust.
‘Oh Ethan, you crazy wonder…put on a rubber,’ she gasped, hoarsely, unable to keep from staring at the gorged length of his prick; at all that he had already brought to her. An apprehensive moan escaped her lips as she moved to lie back on the towels. She held her arms out to him. ‘I’ve got to have you in me…you darling man!’
‘And I’m here…and here,’ he kissed, his hands pushing her legs up and apart and he was poised over her; their hands gripping his trembling length and caressing her opening before he slid slowly, sinuously deep inside her once more.
They both cried out at the same time, a passionate scream of pleasure as their aroused bodies joined. His big dick filled her; Melissa hips bucked ; her muscles worked on him again and again in a lustful rhythm; she tugged and eased; she tugged again as she claimed him in her hot wetness; her lover stretching and filling her and making it feel like he had become a part of her and a perfect fit. His ways made her gasp with wanton pleasure and also brought the spring of tears as she gave of herself. She could forget the wasteland that had been her life since her husband had abandoned her.
‘Ethan…Ethan!’ she cried out, through loud wailing groans of effort and release. The young man wanted her…wanted to fuck her…her! She moaned in disbelief that it was happening. ‘Go on…go on…do that to me…forever…Ethan!’
He gasped and she felt him grow still, deep within her. ‘Sorry…but…but I’m going to come!’
‘Me too!’ she screamed; stifling her gasping cries against his chest, his throat, his mouth…wherever she could meet him.
Her lusting lover was pounding her like a steam ram, faster and faster; that swollen prick claiming her in ways that she had not known of before. It became another tempestuous fuck, both in mind and body. She could feel that long thick pole in beguiling ways and shared in a marvellous friction, every time he withdrew and then plunged into her, in an unrelenting rhythm that she met with bucking hips and slide of her thighs to his body; the pinch of her fingers to his buttocks making him move and to crash against her hips.
‘Milk me! Melissa…take it from me…milk me!’ he yelled, and she felt him burst.
Ethan saw her eyes widen and a look of shocked pleasure fell over her beautiful features.
‘Ohhh… Ohhh,’ she cried out,. ‘now you’re goin’…goin’…going to make me…!’ and that was all it took as he called out to her and shuddered again.
‘I’ve lost it all!’
On plunging, shuddering convulsions of his body, Ethan claimed her and groaned as prolonged, spasming loads of his semen filled the condom and Melissa wrapped him with her arms and legs; stifled her cries against his mouth, then tore her lips away.
‘Rest…we rest! We’ve got to rest!’ she called out as her body was wracked by a second orgasm, her thighs aching from his weight and her womb stretched unbearably by the claims of his prick, moving as if it was a piston in its sleeve, the squelching noises and attention to her body unrelenting. ‘Never…ever, never like this…ever!’
She looked up at the sky and saw the mesmerising sway of the tree branches above her head. She had been taken to another place. She had never experienced anything so intense before. It was better than any sex she’d ever had. No man she’d ever been with had brought her such wanton pleasure as her young, opportunist, lover had done. The sex had been all-consuming.
‘I’m staying near to you…have to do that if you’ll let me,’ he murmured; moving to rest on his elbows and gazing into her eyes as the pleasure discovered once more slowly ebbed away.
‘I want that, Ethan…darling,’ she said over trembling lips. ‘Crazy to say it…but yes.’
Their voices were lost on the warm, gentle breeze and in the sound of the relentless tumble of the waves, and the ever-present seagulls that could be heard screeching as they circled overhead.
‘We’ve loved…now we draw and paint,’ he smiled. Ethan felt her shiver as he withdrew and lay down beside her on the towels. She met his gaze across the narrow space between them and swept her hand lazily over his body in wonder. It felt as his presence had been a gift from her minder, not that she believed in such things.
‘Promise?’ she smiled.
‘Yes…promise.’
‘But a swim first. I need to wash what you’ve brought off me.’
They were lovers, bonded, and now ran hand in hand into the softly tumbling surf once more.
5
‘Ethan..’ she sighed on looking his way.
‘What?’ he answered, smiling across the space between them and gazing at her captivating face; at how beautiful she was to him; wild and only too carefree when there was no one around. They were like two nymphs in a bygone age.
The woman beside him showed a few laughter lines around her eyes and mouth; a beguiling fleshiness to her hips and thighs; a few creases to her neck; none of it detracting from Melissa’s natural beauty; that of a woman with a classic oval face, high cheekbones and wondering hazel eyes; the pout of lightly rouged lips; the classiness of painted fingernails and toes; the riot of sandy blonde strands in her hair that she now fingered through to have it dry quickly; those lender fingers so adept at working and caressing him.
‘I’ve told you…you’re like no other woman I’ve met. I’ve done things on the hoof…just because of you. It’s been glorious… maybe I should call you Glorious,’ he said in a rush of certainty, ‘because you really are.’ Ethan now looked at her with those stilled, wondering eyes. ‘I’m with you, so put away the toys. This…what we’ve found, is real…wonderfully real.’
She nestled against his arm and gripped his hand fiercely; reached across with her free hand to caress his cheek and succumbed to a slow kiss.
‘It’s been that way for me too…’
His warmth and adoration overwhelmed her. It had dispelled the aching loneliness that she so often felt and the destructive, vengeful thoughts that she had continued to harbour against men. That a much younger lover had been taken and had claimed her body, had dispelled all such thoughts almost instantly. They had made her feel uncommonly happy.
‘Melissa?’ he asked gently, his fingers brushing her face as he saw tears well in her eyes.
‘It’s okay, really…you’ve just done something special to me.’ She sighed and looked away for an instant. Her voice became stern and purposeful. ‘Come on…we change the subject. Show me your art book, Ethan…please?’
‘Really….are you sure? You may not think that much of ’em… they’re just rough working sketches. I have to carry it about…post what I can back to a holding address for when I get back…whenever that is. You’ve broken into those plans.’
She nodded but said nothing on it. He had no place to call home now.
‘Really Ethan, you must show me,’ she begged, running her hand down his muscular arm. ‘I’m curious to see what interests you…in that way. You might get some of it shown in Mackay. I could even show you where…’
To do so would keep him by her, somehow and somewhere, and a whole lot longer.
Melissa sat up and clenched her knees. She gloried in him, in his strong body and the intense look on his slender face, as he went to grab his haversack and to ease his sketchpad out of a webbing pouch, along with a small tin of his drawing pencils and pens. To keep their shared moments alive she touched herself; admired his tight round ass and Ethan’s fleshy cock hanging down between his legs. How deviant she now was, her body responding to the sight and need for him once more. She had to stifle a groan of pleasure, and only just removed her fingers in time when the boy, as she suddenly thought of him, turned back to her with a large spiral-bound sketchbook gripped in his large hands.
‘Stay there…stay sitting there, just like that!’ he commanded in a voice she had not heard before. ‘I want to draw you…quick and easy…to capture the moment.’
Ethan knelt before her and soon flicked open the pad, his eyes drifting over her as he decided on what to portray of the woman who had claimed him so passionately. ‘I can’t capture your summer blonde hair…or your wonderful skin…so tanned…the great red of your nails. But I can capture your beauty…and I’ll try to put on the paper the passion in your eyes…’
‘Stop it…stop it!’ she laughed. Melissa sat with her legs crossed thereby concealing her haven and the spiral of hair she had touched moments ago. Her knees pressed her breasts to her aching body; straining to keep him in her had bestowed an uncommon ache to her thighs. She offered a wondering smile as she looked directly at him. ‘No finesse…draw me as I am!’
‘How does it go? ‘Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder’?’ Ethan scrambled across the rough ground and held out the pad for her to see what had been created in no time at all.
‘No…no…it can’t be me!’
‘Oh yes it is…the softly smiling beauty with the sun in her hair…a silky-skinned goddess….I’ve drawn you Picasso-style but it’s you alright…every beautiful curve.’ Before she could stop him he had torn the page from the pad and held it out to her. ‘Yours…to keep.’
‘Let me see the others?’ she exclaimed, astonished by what he had created. ‘Is there anything you can’t do?’
‘Well,’ he said slowly on closing the space between them.
‘You know what I mean!’ Melissa laughed and brushing away a questing hand. ‘Less is more…’
‘I’ll try and believe that…’
He soon sat cross-legged beside her, shoulder to shoulder once more, their thighs touching, as the pad was placed on their knees. Not knowing what to expect, Melissa was confounded by all that he had collected during his travels. There were page after page of pen and ink sketches; light washes of colour to some; detailed sketches of trees and plants, even some wildlife and shells washed up on the shore, in others.
‘You’ve got to come back to Mackay with me…you just have to. There’s a small gallery that you should take these to. It may help to pay your way…’
‘I’m not in it for the money…’ he retorted; snapping shut the pad. It bulged with his work.
‘It’s just a thought…’ she sighed, dismayed at the vehemence of his reply. ‘What you’ve shown me really is beautiful Ethan…just think about it.’
His arm, pressing against hers, pressed closer, warmer, their heads touched as they again considered his work; their thighs brushing against the other; Melissa hair sweeping over his arm or shoulder as she moved to look at the pages as they were turned.
‘Ethan, listen…?’ she now asked, hesitantly, as she felt him move and unzip a pouch to one side of his haversack. He drew out an oatmeal bar and ripped open the wrapping. ‘I…I can’t stay much longer…’
‘So you want my answer? I come into Mackay with you…or we split?’ He said it huskily as he put an arm around her shoulder on sitting down again beside her. He now clenched the bar in his teeth and met her look his way. ‘Share it with me…’
She laughed on hearing him mumble the words and did as he asked; nibbling and chewing, all the while her eyes locked onto his. Melissa slid a hand over his thigh in response to his caresses. She squirmed as his fingers found her soft folds once more then eased away; each of them chewing and swallowing all the while until their lips touched.
‘You…you wonder!’ she gasped through their renewed kisses, her fingers stroking his twitching length as it became erect once more. She felt him snort out his breaths as she worked him in slow strokes and clamps of her hands.
‘No, you are the wonder in making me want you…’
‘You’re very talented,’ she whispered, finding herself getting lost in his brooding eyes.
And then they were kissing feverishly; the rampaging young man and the middle-aged woman sharing in long passionate kisses; their tongues flickering; lips sucking; hands questing over their lover’s body.
‘The art appreciation class is over,’ he grinned through their kisses.
‘And we do this…’
Melissa’s hands explored him. His chest and belly were firm and hard; his muscles taut. She felt firm and fit, supple and round; his caresses having her again feel wonderfully feminine and lusted after.
‘Me first…you…wonderful woman!’
Ethan reclaimed her wonderful breasts; kissed her graceful throat and neck; clenched his lips gently onto her receptive, hard nipples. He tugged on them even as she pushed him away; made him lie back before she straddled him.
‘You know I’m ready,’ she gasped as his fingers found her and she reached for him. She pressed the tip of his penis to her opening and moved, to slowly take it to her. She shuddered; she needed him again and urgently. She was unable to control herself as she slowly rose and settled on him until she could take no more. She leant forward and he reclaimed the tumble of her breasts, grasped them firmly and lifted his head to kiss them.
Melissa rose and then slammed down onto him; he pushed back then had her slam down, hard, onto him once more in a fevered rhythm that they set. She began to gasp and moan in her frenzy; moved her head from side to side, wildly, her hair swaying; her muscles contracting on him and jerking him off.
‘Ohhh yessss,’ she hissed as he claimed her completely now; she felt impaled upon him. ‘It’s perfect…you feel so good in me!’
He was close to it too. He slapped her pounding hips and made her go faster; gripped her breasts to stop their mesmerising sway before his face.
‘You’re…you’re my glorious woman! Yess…yesss…go on!’
She had to slow down, if only for a moment and to kiss him, before he helped her take him once more. They were full partners in the act. Ethan held her hips as he lifted his butt off the towels and she again thumped down on him, claiming all that he had or having it reach the edge, in searing caresses, before settling once more.
Slap…slap…slap was the sound…faster, faster, faster…oh yes…yess yesss…slow…slow…slower. He did whatever she sought of him or wanted to discover; she could do whatever she liked…as long as she kept him so deep in her wondrous body and was there for him to see.
Melissa bowed her head, her breaths sharp and halting.
She couldn’t take it anymore in leading the charge to fulfilment; her denial of a man’s body finally satisfied, and her times of denial finally ended and through these close encounters with a younger man. She had given of herself in no time at all, yet it all felt sublimely real.
‘I’m wasted, you darling…darling man,’ she told him, falling
forward and pressing down on his muscular body.
Ethan took over. Melissa gripped his shoulders and, with her wonderful breasts dangling in his face, her young lover took her fast and with effortless ease; the young man, with those beautiful, haunted eyes and endowed like no other she had given herself to. He paid homage to her body; coaxed her senses like a maestro.
With a little gentle urging, he got Melissa up and onto her knees. Ethan heard her gasp as he toyed with her opening for a moment before reclaiming her; held her hips as he thrust deeper and resumed his pace. Melissa pushed back firmly, her moist heat enveloping him.
‘Mel…Mel woman…I’m…’ he groaned as his body slapped against her butt cheeks and felt her reach between her legs to touch herself; just as he had found her doing when he had drawn close enough to see her.
‘Yes! Oh yes…bring it to me!’ she called out, turning her head in an effort to engage with him. Ethan slowed and bent to kiss her neck and back.
Was he loving or fucking this mature goddess on this lonely stretch of beach and under the trees? Whatever, doing it doggy style, the toyed with her body and took her with ravening speed or with long, teasing, relentless strokes.
‘Finish it!’ she yelled, pushing back crazily and on failing strength; she could not work him as she had done for what seemed like hours. Melissa reached between her legs, once more, to rub her engorged and sensitive clit. Still, she played with herself.
‘Don’t do that…don’t! I’m coming…let me do it for you…do it all for you!’
‘No…no… no… wait a while longer, darling Ethan,’ she commanded. ‘It’ll be so good…’
The young stud took deep breaths and did what he was told. He slowed right down, holding his orgasm at bay, and… and Melissa resumed in playing with herself. He was now her toy, not those items she’d brought to the beach.
Ethan pushed her hand away. He took her with renewed and unrelenting ferocity. ‘Let me…let me, then!’
‘Ethan…Ethan!’ Her body spasmed and she couldn’t hold them back; her climaxes following quickly on each other, and she yelled out to him as if in a dream. ‘I’m yours…yours! Take your pleasure with me…let me help you through!’
Time stood still.
She couldn’t remember when she had last taken a breath. She was only partially aware that the endless screams of passion were coming from her mouth. The feeling continued, on and on, and with such intensity that she thought she would faint.
‘Oh shit! I forgot the condom!’
‘Fill me…go on, fill me!’ she moaned on feeling him go still. She had to lean back on him as his hands clamped on her breasts in wild pleasure and she felt him burst; felt the hot gushes of his semen flush into her.
He embraced her, somehow, as she knelt back on his thighs and felt his breaths on her skin slowly fade away on the breeze that rustled the leaves of the tress. The surf could again be heard. She luxuriated in the clammy heat of their bodies; shivered as he finally withdrew. She felt all that he’d brought to her leak onto her clammy thighs.
‘What a day it has been…’
‘Yeah…crazy and wonderful. I don’t know which word is right.’
She met his look as he lay back and gazed up at her,; a hand lazily caressing her breasts. Melissa lingered, wanted the moment and the afterglow of what she had again done with him to gradually leave her aching body.
‘Rest,’ she smiled. ‘I’m going for a swim. Then…then, I’ll have to get ready and go…’
He heard the question in her voice. ‘Not without me…swim or leaving. None of it without me.’
6
Melissa woke disoriented and unsure where she was… like it had all been a dream… a wonderful dream. Then it all came flooding back and her body tingled. Her orgasm had been so intense that she’d fallen asleep on the towels; her plan to leave, and go home, delayed by a swim and then another frenzied coupling; but for how long?
‘Ethan?’ she called out, suddenly realizing that she was alone under the trees.
‘I’m here,’ she heard him say. Turning, she saw him walk slowly towards her, his drawing pad in his hand, the other adjusting the swell in his briefs. ‘I thought you’d never wake up,’ he now smiled, a tender touch of his fingers to her face. She met his caress like a cat loving to be stroked. ‘You looked so sexy lying there…’
‘Ethan… Ethan,’ her voice breaking. ‘What have you done…in loving me and now drawing me?’ She chose to stand up and press against him. She looked down at the sketch pad.
It was a perfect, flattering likeness. For the first time Melissa saw how truly beautiful she was, all of it magically captured by a piece of charcoal on white paper and drawn by a lover seeing her through his eyes.
Tears came unbidden and rolled down her cheeks as she studied her portrait.
‘You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ said Ethan earnestly, stroking her cheek and wiping her tears away once more.
The image was of her asleep, her lips slightly parted. Somehow, he had captured the glow on her face with black charcoal, the lustre of her hair, her eyelashes and brows. The picture showed her naked body exactly as it was; detail, she thought to be imperfections, here made her more beautiful – breasts she had always thought too big and hips she’d always worried were getting too wide…they looked perfect. Her rounded belly seemed just right and sexy. He’d drawn her arms more toned and supple then she thought they were, one crossed over her tits; the other palm upward on the sand, and her long athletic legs and feet spread out on her towel; he’d shown the fine line of hair to her mound and lips; a darker line to where his cock had been taken so often.
She looked at him with uncommon fondness; even out of love.
‘I…I… oh, Ethan… you’ve made me beautiful.’
‘It’s what you look like,’ he whispered, standing at her side. ‘I just wrote it down.’
His handsome face was close as a gentle breeze tousled their hair. His was a crazy sun-bleached blonde; hers a colour not so far from his, the long strands now getting in the way of their lips.
‘Sorry, but no more…’ she said on a shudder and feeling the hard swell of his prick against her belly as he sought to detain her. Their mouths met again; they kissed deeply; eyes closed, as their fingers fondled and teased each other. ‘I want to…but I have to go!’
‘In a moment…’
The randy boy fell to his knees in front of his goddess. Leaning forward into her belly he buried his face between her legs. Her scent was, as before, like an aphrodisiac for him.
‘Oh god, Ethan,’ she gasped, ‘what are you doin’ to me? I have to go…I just have to!’
Grasping her firm butt cheeks, Ethan pulled her as close as he could, so he could lick and push his tongue in deeper. He could tell he was doing it right, because he felt her hands on the back of his head and soon she was groaning, a deep animal growl that drove him crazy.
‘Ooooh you darling…darling,’ she rasped. ‘Travel with me…stay somewhere close to me! But now…I have to go!’
She tore herself away and met his soft smile and slow nod of acknowledgement.
‘You have your duties to others. I’m a beach guy…walking, drawing and forgetting…’
‘And loving me like no other,’ she whispered on coming back to him, her clothes in her hands. Would she ever find someone like this again? The more she considered her feelings, the more fearful Melissa became. The handsome young guy, this horny and wonderfully endowed lover of her, the artist too, was looking at her with such adoration that she knew she was in trouble.
‘You’ve gotten to me, Melissa…you really have.’ He looked for his clothes and she watched him dress; saw every ripple and stretch of his muscles as he did that.
She was right to have thought that Ethan was planning how their lives could continue to touch; even how to live together. This chance encounter had, for him, become a life-changing moment and he was dreamily reflecting on how it would work out; thought of the contradictions and the problems that would face them.
‘I know what you’re thinking…’ he said.
‘Do you now?’
‘Yes…that I could move here. I can paint anywhere, so why not in this beautiful place? You and I can swim every day…sleep in the same bed… it’s going to be…it could be perfect.’
‘We’ve…we’ve lost sight of reality, Ethan…darling.’
She drew close and brushed her fingers over his cheek, then his parted lips. She met his look upon her; she, the older and wiser woman, was trying to deny it all and she was busy convincing herself the complete opposite of all that he had told her; what she had seen in those drawings of her…two of them now. How many more would follow? He was like Picasso…or Dali…Freud…all who painted the women in their lives. He was younger…just younger. Her ardent lover had told other of his past and she had also seen his vulnerability, yet it was disguised in his bravura in dealing with her and in his loving. It was as if he had stumbled on his salvation quite by chance…which, of course, he had.
She recognised it too.
It will never work, she told herself, no matter how good he makes me feel, no matter how good we are together. There’s just too many years difference. I don’t really know him…I’ve given myself and known of him. Craziest of all, her daughter was not that much younger than he was. Even if he was a soulmate, it wouldn’t last. He’d get sick and tired of her…the fleshy woman would not hold his attention for ever…not even for long.
‘I could have left you while you were sleeping, but I’m just not made that way,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts.
‘I would have been upset and angry…you not bothering to say goodbye, but that’s not in you, Ethan.’
‘No, it’s not…or not with you.’
‘Have there been girls you’ve treated in that way?’
‘No…’
‘ I… need to get going. I really do need to get going,’ Melissa said desperately.
Stumbling to her feet, the flustered woman went about collecting her things, rolling up her towel, slipping into a pretty loose-fitting dress, not the thin blouse and short skirt he had first seen her wear. Her graceful feet were slipped into some battered deck shoes, but the sight of her dressed in that way took nothing from her…to his eyes.
‘Wait, no, no… please… please stay,’ gasped Ethan. ‘I’ll set up camp right here. I do it in places like this all the time since I set off on my journey. We can stay together all night and I’ll make you breakfast…over a fire I’ll make on the beach. I live simply…’
‘And I live with a daughter. I need to get back home and to her,’ she told him gently. ‘That’s my life that you’ve taken me out of, Ethan…you darling!’
Melissa’s cool bag was gripped and put over her shoulder; her basket with her toys and other stuff in the other hand. She sensed him follow her down the dunes and to her vehicle. She sought the keys, and they soon heard the alarm chirrup.
‘Wait!’ he called out to her as Melissa slammed shut the tailgate and began to step into her car, her dress sliding over her legs and revealing her toned, glistening thighs.
‘I need to get going Ethan,’ she said over trembling lips. ‘Don’t make it difficult for me…for both of us, please? Goodbye…thanks for everything… it was wonderful… bye… goodbye…my love.’
‘Melissa…don’t…wait, please?’ She heard the desperation in his voice. ‘I met and loved with a beautiful woman…I broke all the rules, but I meant everything that I said and did in loving you. Don’t…don’t just walk out of my life.’
He cornered her as she tried to get into the car, pushing her firmly up against the driver’s side passenger door when Melissa tried to get past him.
‘Let me go Ethan… please let me go… it can never work. Think it through, please?’
She saw him nod; then took in the slump of his shoulders and a nod of acceptance for all that she had said.
‘I…I’m… I’m goin’ to camp here,’ he said desperately. ‘I’m still goin’ to do that for as long as I can and, if you don’t come back tomorrow… or the next day… ell…I guess I’ll move on.’
She heard again the vulnerability in his voice; knew it wasn’t an act, but she could not base her decision on emotion alone or what she had discovered with him and he with her.
‘I have to go, Ethan, my lover,’ she whispered, tearfully. ‘Please Ethan… don’t make this any harder for us? I cannot possibly stay here with you. I’ve got a family who depends on me…’
‘At least you’ve got that…’ he said on stepping away. Ethan straightened up. ‘I’ll get through.’
‘What happened today… I’ll never ever forget,’ she whispered, blindly groping for the edge of the door even as he held it open for her. ‘But I need to go home…it’s been a close encounter of a wonderful kind for me.’
‘And for me,’ he said on a breaking voice. Neither of them could have imagined that their random encounter would end with such heartbreak. ‘Go carefully…you know where I am.’
‘Yeah…I know where you are, here and in my thoughts.’
Melissa tugged shut the door. He watched the taillights of the old four-wheel drive disappear up the rough track and into the scrub and trees; the track seemingly winding up the hill; the engine sound slowly dying away until silence again prevailed all around him. The sky was darkening, and the first stars were just to be seen.
‘A day and a woman like no other…’ he murmured. ‘I’m alone again as before, and tomorrow’s another day…to have her think through what we’ve found.’
He hummed the tune, the music and the words captured perfectly what he had been made to feel and share all day with her: good vibrations.