I kept her honest.

  It took me a good while to reach that point though, because I was a very greedy bastard when it came to her. Tasting so fine, and so amazingly soft under my tongue—my girl was nothing short of exquisite perfection. I took her over and over again like that…giving my cock some needed breaks for recovery in between all the fucking that happened along the way as well.

  Nothing was done in small measures on our first night together. The sex went on for hours.

  The best part was hearing the precious I love you’s when I made her come. She did it every time, and I loved her even more for saying it. If that were even in the realm of possibility.

  We didn’t take our eyes or our hands off each other. Not the first time, and not any of the other times we made love that night. I was running out of days with my Cherry Girl, and I had to take every available second of time I could grab for us.

  I begrudged even the moments when I had to close my eyes for sleep, and was only able to do so, because I could feel her against my skin.

  And hear her steady breathing in the dark.

  And smell the scent of her with every breath I took in.

  CHAPTER 10

  I held onto her as night transformed into day—slowly caressing up and down her back while she slept—unwilling to break physical contact, in a pathetic attempt to keep everything status quo and my heart intact. I loved her so much.

  But now, I had something precious to lose, and the stark knowledge of that fact terrified me down to my very bones.

  So, we had finally found our way to this point together, bodies aligned, key to lock, lover to lover. Everything had felt as I’d always imagined it would feel, but then at the same time, it didn’t, because there was no possible description of what we did together that first night, in a stately mansion, perched on the Somerset coast.

  It’d been far more than a first shag session between two lovers. Far, far more.

  I had waited so long for Elaina, I was nearly out of my rational mind at times, with all restraint just flying out the window in an instant. She’d put up with me throughout the whole night though, and never once stopped me in my raging need to have her. My beautiful girl really did love me, apparently. I didn’t know how or why but I’d take it for the gift it was.

  I opened my eyes at some point to her blue ones watching over me in silence. Her body was draped half on top of mine, leg thrown over, palm on my chest, our faces very close. “Wakey, wakey,” she purred.

  Her use of my same words the first time she woke up in bed with me, made me smile. She had a bit of tease in her and I loved that. “Ahh, the best waking I can ever remember actually. Can we do it like this every morning?”

  She smiled and blushed, sending me into instant arousal, the need to take her yet again instinctual and primal. I kissed her instead.

  She had to be pretty worn out by now. We’d done nothing but shag and sleep, with occasional breaks for the bathroom and hydration, all night long.

  I pulled back from her mouth, caressing her face and tracing her lips with a finger. “How are you feeling today, beautiful girl?”

  “Loved by you,” she answered shyly.

  Her simple answer and accompanying blush was enough to get me going and reaching for the box of condoms again.

  “I can never do enough of that.” I got myself wrapped, and my mouth sucking on her tits in record time.

  Elaina arched and moaned for me, letting me know she wanted what I was doing, so I pulled her on top of me and snaked a hand between her legs. My immediate goal being to make sure she was primed and ready for me.

  She was.

  My beautiful girl was soaking wet and more than prepared for me to fuck her. Again. Maybe she was really fucking me. Either way, was all good, and we were ready to go.

  I slipped my hands under her bum and lifted her over my cock. She helped to guide us on target and then dropped herself down, impaling herself hard on me.

  “Fuck, yes!” I shouted, wondering if the poor people who lived here had been kept awake during night from all the noise. I know we made plenty.

  I was so lost in my girl, my social filter was completely absent, and I didn’t care if we were inconveniencing anybody. Just didn’t care about anything or anyone but us.

  She rode me expertly, lifting her hips again and again in a rotating motion that would see me utterly blown in a very short time. As soon as I made sure she was going off, I’d let myself follow. My Cherry came first. This was a rule. She. Came. First.

  “Ahh…I’m coming…” she whispered, as she worked me over, her eyes starting to glaze as her whole body became overtaken by shudders.

  Thank bloody hell.

  I followed her within seconds, never taking my hands off her hips, slamming her down repeatedly onto my cock while I dissolved into her.

  ***

  “I don’t know what I think is more beautiful, this spread, or the view from our suite,” she announced at breakfast.

  We’d made our way out of the bed, miraculously, and down to the dining room. After our wake-up fuck, we’d showered together and even managed to get dressed into clothing fit for public wear. I think it really came down to the need for nutrients. Bodies can’t shag for hours without some refueling to keep them going. The best kind of experiment though. I had no complaints as I sat across the breakfast table and watched her over a cup of tea and a scone. My only distracting thought—the long curl of hair strewn over her left breast, obstructing my view. My mind began playing the let’s remember what Elaina’s tits look like naked game. She had the most spectacular pair that’s for sure.

  Yeah, I’m just a lowly bastard male and cannot help myself.

  “What’s on your mind, Neil?” She interrupted my inner ramblings.

  I looked up to see her smirking and knew I was good and caught.

  “Nothing fit for this fancy breakfast room full of guests.”

  “I knew it,” she laughed.

  “It’s all your fault, my darlin’,” I said. “I need to take you somewhere private and then I can show you exactly what was on my mind.” I whispered the rest so nobody could hear. “After I remove some of your clothes.”

  “Ahh, I see what you’re on about. You’re trying to trick me back into bed with you and you should know that it’s a lost cause, mister.”

  “Really?” I gave her a sad face.

  She laughed at me some more, but said nothing.

  “Well, it’s a nice day today so maybe you fancy an out-of-doors shag?” I winked. “I’m game if you are, babe, I love me a bit country sunshine.”

  She shook her head at me and blushed beautifully. Man, did it wreak havoc on my insides. There was something about how Elaina got shy around me, and blushed at the mention of naughty deeds. That rosy flush of her skin that appeared when she thought about all the sexy things we’d done together, was definitely my kryptonite.

  ***

  The day was perfectly fine and just about everything else was, too. Iridescent blue dragonflies flittered over the water, buzzing around us, and even occasionally coming to rest upon the water’s surface. The fresh air mixed with the scent of her hair comforted my senses, to the point I could honestly admit I was blissed out. It was a first for me. I’d never known the feeling before.

  Elaina lay back on my chest in a little green and white rowboat upon Lake Leticia, a scenic meandering pond situated on the Hallborough estate. I was again reminded of the many BBC miniseries my gran had enjoyed on TV when I was a boy—lovers from times past with nothing better to do than float on a garden lake, stealing kisses in their fine clothes and flattering their dates with fancy words.

  I had to say it wasn’t at all bad. I was loving it.

  “My mum would love it here,” she said, trailing a hand over the side and into the water. “She’s always been captivated by historic homes and gardens.”

  “My gran would have, too.” I surprised myself for mentioning her at all. Gran was a topic I kept cl
ose and pretty much closed. Elaina was different, of course, I could share with her, but it wasn’t something I sought out to do. Thinking of my gran, I only wished I could have brought her to a place like this for a holiday. She would have loved the gardens and the ocean views, and the stately house very much. I never got the chance to take her anywhere nice or do anything special for—

  “You lived with your grandmother before you came to England when you were seventeen?” she asked from the side of the boat, cutting off my retreat into past regrets I couldn’t do anything to change.

  “Yeah. In Glasgow.”

  “I knew that you were a Scot because Ian used to call you Scotty when you were younger.”

  “He changed his mind about it once I grew bigger than him, now didn’t he?”

  She laughed. “I remember that, too. Ian was so disappointed when you topped him in height.”

  “By like an inch, maybe. Your brother can be an idiot sometimes.”

  “Very true about Ian. But what happened to your mum?” She asked it softly, as if she were being gentle with me in case her question brought out sad feelings.

  I rubbed up and down her arm to reassure her. “She had me when she was very young…just sixteen. My father was a student at the University of Glasgow when he met my mum and impregnated her. He abandoned us when she told him I was on the way. McManus was her family name, not his.”

  “So, you lived in Scotland with your mother and your grandmother?” She turned away from the water and asked me directly.

  “Right. Her mother, my gran, took care of us, and then me, when Mum died. Yeah…it was pretty awful.” Elaina pulled her hand from the water and leaned back against me again. She was waiting for me to talk about my past and I figured there was no time like the present. Hiding it certainly wouldn’t help anything, and I might as well get on with throwing it all out there with her. I’d want to know if it was the other way ’round.

  “When I was ten, my mother and her boyfriend got themselves killed in a car crash driving home drunk from the pub. They ran themselves off the road in a rainstorm and into a flooded ditch.”

  “Oh, that’s horrible.”

  “Mum never really settled down like a typical mother. She had me far too young, and she didn’t really grow up or get over the fact that my father didn’t love her or want anything to do with us. She was only twenty-six when she died. And she had dreadful taste in men, apparently…” I trailed off with my sad story and hoped I didn’t have to talk about it much more. I wanted to enjoy our time here, and not waste it on the uselessness of regret over things I had absolutely no control. Strolls down memory lane didn’t do a bloody thing for me. I had learned to live in the present and for the future. It was the only way.

  Elaina rolled over to face me and rested on my chest, looking up. “I didn’t know all that about your family. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For you, for how scary it must have been for you as a little boy losing your mother and then later on, your grandmother. I knew it was bad for you, but I didn’t know the story. I’m so sorry for your losses.”

  I shared more with her because she was so gentle and kind with her feelings, and I could tell she wanted to know about me. For the first time, I actually felt like talking a little about my life because I knew I could trust her.

  “Gran was lovely…and if we’re being completely honest, she’s the one who really raised me. My mum was not ready to have a child and although my memories of her are sweet, we weren’t ever like a typical mother and son. It was my gran’s dying of cancer, when I was seventeen, that dealt the worst blow. It devastated me…and there was so little time to settle things before she passed away.”

  “You had to leave Scotland, then?” She found my hand and entwined our fingers together, caressing back and forth with her thumb.

  “Yeah. And it was clear I’d have to go with my father as soon as Gran’s condition was pronounced terminal. There was nobody else to take me.”

  She brought my hand to her lips and held it there.

  I kept talking. “Everyone was unhappy about it. I didn’t want to leave my home, or for my gran to die, or to go live with a father I’d never met, and who didn’t want me any more than I wanted him.”

  She gripped my hand tighter.

  “He had a wife who really didn’t want me around—messing up their perfect little family life in England, bringing up questions, destroying the façade of respectability they’d earned. They had a three-year-old son already. Sam—their real son.”

  “So, you came to live with your father and that’s when we met you?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t make it easy for any of us. As soon as I was delivered to my father’s house and got a good feeling for how things were going to be with my new family, I ran away, sneaking off almost immediately, hitching rides all the way back to Scotland. It took a while, but they found me trying to live in the back of my gran’s garage. My dad sent me off directly to school in London after that mess so I didn’t have to live with them, and since our last names were different, nobody connected us as father and son. I was just a kid dumped at school by people who liked to pretend I didn’t exist.”

  Elaina was quiet for a bit, just holding my hand to her lips and absorbing everything I’d told her. When she finally spoke, her voice had a detached ring to it as if she were making a confession. “I always hated your family. I never met them but I hated them just the same for how uncaring they were of you.”

  God, I loved her. “I always sort of sensed that from you, Cherry. Just made me love you more though.”

  She wasn’t done. “But then, I probably shouldn’t hate them, because if they hadn’t been so awful we might never have met you. Ian wouldn’t have befriended you and dragged you home to us.” She leaned up to find my lips for a kiss.

  I clung to her as if she were a lifeline. “Your family probably saved my life,” I whispered, holding her face close.

  “How did we do that?” I could see tears in her eyes and knew it hurt her to hear all this horrible shit. I hoped it was the last time I ever had to speak of it with her. Elaina was only part of the good things that had happened in my life. She was the light to all that darkness. I was relieved to realize that the sorry, sad rest of my past, just didn’t matter to me anymore.

  “By wanting me. You always wanted me, Cherry, and I don’t know why you did, but I do know that it was the thing that saved me. You and your family saved me.”

  She nodded and let out a sob. “Always did…and always will.” Her hand started moving, rubbing over the place where my heart beat and the blood was pumped, showing me the truth behind her lovely words.

  “But, I don’t want you to dwell on it. Please, for me, don’t think about it anymore because it’s over and just doesn’t matter. I survived because of you, and more importantly, I have you now. You’re mine.” I smiled. “That’s all I care about.” I kissed her for a long time.

  I held onto my Elaina. I held her up against my heart, in that little rowboat on the idyllic lake, at the splendid English estate that felt like something out of a Dickens novel, and knew pretty much what complete happiness felt like, for the first time in my adult life.

  All the sad shit and the fucked-up past was well behind us, where it belonged. I figured we only had good in our future to look forward to together.

  No words could do justice to what I’d just shared with Elaina in such a very special place. It was that meaningful to me. I certainly couldn’t find the right words to express what it meant to me to know that she’d always loved me and wanted me…just because she did. No other reason, than that the path of her heart led her to me. A miracle. I couldn’t rationalize it and I wouldn’t even attempt to figure out why things played out the way that they did with us.

  I made a decision to just believe in fate right then and there. Done. I wouldn’t question the how’s or the why’s of it anymore, but simply accept the gift of fate I’d been
given with my Elaina.

  I’d hold the memory of this beautiful time together with her, keeping it safe inside me where I could revisit whenever I needed to, so I could make it through the next ten months of being apart.

  And that time was coming.

  Far, far too soon.

  CHAPTER 11

  The enormous bathtub had a view to rival the best scenic vistas on any travel documentary, but I wasn’t looking at or caring about it. No, my attention was elsewhere. And my view was much more spectacular.

  Elaina, naked was breathtaking. Elaina, naked, and wet in the bath with me, even more so. Elaina, naked, wet, and sucking on my cock, was probably going to render me blind in the next minute or two. If I wasn’t dead by then.

  She worked me over good, drawing the length deep and pulling back with a little twist of her hand on each stroke. I held her long hair back from her face and let her take me to heaven.

  “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck…that’s it—I’m going off!”

  I tried to pull away but she wouldn’t let go and the wet warmth of her mouth felt too good against the bare flesh of my cock. I couldn’t stop the force of the spunk that exploded from me, and worried about choking her, but I was too far gone to do much of anything about it. My state of control over myself had come and gone. I’d come hard.

  She took it all down her throat while I shuddered and pulsed, feeling like I shouldn’t do that to her, but it felt too fuckin’ good to stop. I was a slave to her love and very happy to my lot in life.

  “God, girl, you’re gonna kill me,” I said, panting through the after-rush of my orgasm.

  She released me from her lips and grinned like the devil, wiping the corner of her mouth with a finger.

  I groaned from the sheer pornographic lust she instilled in me. In a very good way of course, but still… “Yeah, I’m dyin’ for sure.”

  “Nope. No killing you off, Captain. No dying allowed, either.” Her hand still gripping ’round my cock, she stroked me slowly, still managing to keep me hard, which was not really an issue, ever, with her. I wanted Elaina all the time, and she was so generous with me; I just took and took some more. If she wanted me, I was ready to serve which was just another reason to be careful with the extra protection. With all the spunk going off from all the sex, it would just be a matter of time until I knocked her up. I couldn’t let that happen.