Flight to Paradise Ch. 01

"Like you said, he saw our name on the store."

"Okay, but it's not like our name it out here front and center. We're buried way at the back. It's not like you're just going to stumble across our names."

She thinks a moment. "Point to you, but does it matter?"

"No, not really. I was just kind of caught off guard. He had to do a little digging in the store to find me, and that's been nagging at me all day."

She snickers. "Not everyone that pings us is wanting something you know. Personally, I'm glad someone is taking an interest in the company. You know how Rick's been talking about how sales are slowing? Well, there's still enough interest out there that at least one person is looking us over. Maybe he's going to ask for a job."

"As what? Part of the set? You remember how big he is, right?" he teases while preparing the coffee pot for morning.

Charlie laughs. "Yeah, I remember. But couldn't you see him in Coy's role? He'd make a perfect gladiator. Maybe. He was tall but not that big as I recall."

"Big enough," Todd counters, remembering how Tony just towered over everyone in the school. If you ever want to know where Tony was, just look around. Even sitting in a crowd, he was a head taller than anyone around him. If he'd been an asshole, he'd have been downright scary, but he remembers Tony as being pretty laid back.

"Not that it matters. We've got our gladiators. Besides, he's older than we are. I'm not sure he could handle Sierra," she says as her lips quirk sideways.

"So, what night works for us? He said he could make it any night but tonight."

"Wednesday is tennis night, but any other night is fine."

"Okay, so pick one, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday. And where are we going? He said he'd take us out, though I think it's only fair we take him out since we live here and he's from out of town," he says as he wipes the sink dry with his towel.

"Doesn't matter. I think we are going to stay right here, and I'm thinking why wait. How about tomorrow night?"

"Are you sure you want to invite Tony here? We really don't know him, you know. Is tomorrow going to give you enough time to get something ready?"

She looks at him as she rolls her eyes. "And just how many mass-murders do you know who came from Hays? It won't be just Tony. Kate will be here too, if he's not married. He's not married, is he? Do you know? I told Kate I'd let her know. How embarrassing would that be, to have Tony and the missus turn up and I've set up a date for him," she says, making a face. "And yes, plenty of time. I've already decided what we're having."

"Kate?" he asks, turning to look at her. "He's not married, said he'd never been married, but why's Kate going to be here?"

"Because she wants to meet Tony, and because it makes for a nice Feng Shui. Two women, two men, and it gives me someone to talk to in case you and Tony get all that macho bullshit going."

"I thought you liked Tony," he teases. "Are you sure you want to put Kate onto him? She may eat him alive, bones and all."

She laughs. "Trust me, Tony can take care of himself."

He stares at her a moment. "And you know that... how?"

"Between my junior and senior year, Tony asked me out a few times."

"Between... he would have been in college!"

"So? He's still only two years—less than two years—older than we are."

Todd begins to laugh. "I bet your dad nearly had a coronary. He wasn't very happy having me hanging around. I can't imagine his reaction with Tony hanging around."

"Well, first off, we never dated. I was sweet on someone else at the time, so Dad never knew he was asking me out. But we were friends for a while. Just not that type of friends."

"Who were you sweet on?"

Charlie looked at Todd as if he's thick. "You, you dumb-ass! I waited part of my junior year, and nearly all of my senior year for you to ask me out."

"Wait!" he interjects. "Weren't you dating... what was that guy's name?" he asks, rapidly snapping his fingers. "Mike somebody or other?"

"Mike Peoski. I was sweet on you, Todd, but I wasn't so sweet on you that I was going to sit at home every night and wait for you to call. You were cute, but you weren't that cute."

He smiles as he remembers back. "I was so damn in love with you from about the eighth grade on, but you were the most popular girl in school, and I was just this schmuck whose dad ran a tire store. I'm frankly surprised you even noticed me." He leans in for a kiss which she returns. Two years! I could have been dating Charlie for two years! If I'd only known, or at least if I had the balls to ask.

She smiles in memory. "I know. I would see you looking at me. Why didn't you ever come over? I waved a few times, trying to get you to come talk to me."

"Because you were... you, and I was... me," he replies as his smile reappears.

It's funny now that he had the girl, but it sure as hell hadn't been funny back then. In high school he'd wanted to talk to her so badly his hair ached, but he couldn't work up the nerve, not when she was always surrounded by guys that were better looking and with more money than he ever hoped to have.

She begins to laugh. "What does that mean? I even sent... damn... what was her name?" She pauses to think. "I can't remember now. Anyway, I sent somebody to tell you I wanted you to ask me out. I couldn't believe it when you didn't talk to me after that. Pissed me off too, but you still had that look about you, so I couldn't stay mad for long."

"It means you... were you. The most popular girl in school, the daughter of the police chief. Your family isn't the McMillans, but you were doing okay. And I was me, son of a tire store manager with dirt under his nails. So, what do you think it means?" He paused for a moment. "If you remember who you sent to tell me to ask you out, you let me know. Next time we're home, I'm going to slap the shit out of her because she never delivered the message," he says, his smile belying his words.

"You know that didn't make any difference to me, right?" she murmurs, smiling as she gently touches his face. Poor Todd, he had been so shy, always looking at the ground around girls. The only time he had any self-confidence at all was when he was swimming.

The year the school was in the hunt for the state championship the whole school began to rally around the swim team. That's when she first saw the man he would become, lean, handsome, confident. She'd liked him before because of his easy charm and quick wit, not to mention good looks, but seeing him with the swim team allowed her to see him in a new light, encouraging and consoling other members of the team as needed. He wasn't the captain of the team, but he was clearly the leader.

As the team advanced into regionals, the girls begin to notice the members of the swim team, each of them a good-looking guy. But Todd, he never changed, even as the other members of the team began to shake up the school dating scene by picking off other guy's girlfriends. She knew that several of the more popular girls were pursuing him, but even as he talked to them, she would sometimes catch him furtively looking at her.

"Yeah. I know it now! But I didn't know it then! Anyway, I don't know why you wouldn't want to date Tony, other than your father would have shot him. He was the most popular guy in school. You two would have been a perfect match." He looks around the kitchen. Satisfied with what he sees, he hangs up the towel draped over his shoulder.

"Well," she replies seriously, "He was rich, and tall, and handsome. And sweet in his own way. Oh, and don't forget, he wasn't afraid to ask me out. But other than that, he really didn't have anything going for him." Todd has such a stricken look on his face that she begins to laugh. "Seriously, besides the fact that my dad would have had him arrested and thrown in jail," she continues with a giggle, "he's just not my type. He's so tall and big. I don't know, maybe I just like normal size guys. He's like a Mack truck to a sports car." She looked at him and softens. "I don't see how I could possibly be happier than I am right now, with you."

He looks into her eyes and he can feel his heart leaping because he knows he's the luckiest son-of-a-bitch who's ever lived. "I'm feeling kind of tired. I think I'll turn in early," he says softly as he holds her gaze.

"You know, I was thinking the same thing," she replies with a smile, standing up from her propped position and leading him to their bedroom.

They lie in bed with Charlie's back tucked in comfortably to Todd chest. As he softly strokes the curve of her breast, gently kissing her neck and shoulder, she thinks about the first time they kissed. They'd been dating for a month. Todd had finally gathered the courage to ask her out after that amazing come-from-behind victory in the state swimming finals. Over the month they had taken in a couple of movies and had dinner at various inexpensive restaurants, doing what kids do. Then he'd changed the routine and taken her to see a play, a professional, traveling, off-Broadway production of Cats, presented in the school gym. They had dressed up—also a first—with Charlie wearing a new dress she'd wheedled out of her mother just for the occasion. After the matinee performance he'd taken her to dinner at a fancy restaurant. She'd been very impressed. He worked part-time at the local grocery store stocking shelves, or at his dad's tire shop mounting tires, and the evening must have cost him two months' pay. He'd looked so handsome in his dark suit and tie, his shoes polished, his hair combed, and his mouth just begging to be kissed. She'd watched him eat all evening, watched him smile, until she was sure she was going to burst with pent-up longing. The restaurant had a small dance floor, and when the live band started playing slow dance music, he'd stood and invited her to dance.

"I didn't know you knew how to dance!" she whispered as she rose to her feet.

"I don't," he admitted with a sheepish grin. "Mom showed me last night, so if I step on your toes, I'm sorry."

As it turned out, Todd was a natural dancer, smooth and graceful as he glided her around the dance floor. They danced the first song alone before a few more couples joined in on the second. When a few more join for the third, he guided her out to the patio that ran the entire back side of the building. They were completely alone, perfect for their first kiss, but all he seemed to be willing to do was wrap an arm around her waist and stare into the gathering darkness. Not once since he'd asked her out had he made any move to kiss her. She was having none of it tonight and made several encouraging moves. When he turned, as though he were going to guide her back indoors, she grabbed him by his lapels and tiptoed up to his mouth.

"How much longer do I have to wait, huh?" she whispered before she kissed him.

She turns in his arms, reaching up to stroke his cheek as he rolls to his back. "Do you remember the first time we kissed?" she asks, sliding her hand over his chest. She could just make out his smile in the dimness of the room as she continues to stroll her hand lazily up and down his warm, hard chest.

"Yes. Why?"

"I've been thinking," she begins as she walks her fingers down his belly to his boxers, sliding her hand beneath the waistband before gently ruffling the hair that surrounds a burgeoning erection. His breath catches in his throat and Charlie smiles, teasing him with her soft touches, doing everything but touching him where he wants to be touched.

"And what were you thinking?" he asks, his voice sounding slightly strained as he struggles to keep his breathing even as she teases him.

"I was thinking how that kiss may be the sexiest kiss I'd ever had," she says as she slides her hand slowly down his leg, then back up, lightly dragging her nails over his skin, teasing him with the anticipation. His quiet gasps are arousing her as much as her touch is him, but she perseveres, determined to break his reserve. "After you got over being shocked," she murmurs with a giggle, "You sure let me have it, didn't you? It was almost like you had been waiting for a chance to do that."

"Yeah, well," he says, clearing his throat. "I'd never kissed a girl before."

"You were a quick learner though," she whispers, her hand still busy slowly stroking and touching.

"I had a good teacher," he says with a smile. Charlie is the first, and last, girl he's ever kissed.

"That night was full of surprises," she murmurs. "I learned you could dance, that you could kiss, and that I could trust you, that you didn't have roaming hands." She smiles at the memory. "Did you know that was the night that I decided that I was going to sleep with you? Mostly because I knew I could trust you."

He takes a deep breath, remembering how badly he had wanted her after that kiss. Though they'd started kissing, it had been another month before they had consummated their relationship. He made his desires clear but had never tried to push her beyond what she was comfortable doing. His mouth curves up in a smile.

"That was the longest month of my life."

"But it was worth the wait, wasn't it?" she teases.

He kisses her gently. "Very much so."

She had picked him up after work, as she did occasionally, when he couldn't borrow the family car, having no car of his own. But instead of taking him home, she had taken him to her empty house. Her parents had gone to Los Vegas for five days for a police convention. He'd been terrified and excited at what the empty house likely meant.

"Did your parents ever know what happened?" she asks softly, smiling over memories she hasn't thought about in years. "Why you were so late getting home?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. If they did, they never said anything," he whispers, kissing her again, the kiss deeper, holding more promise, but then smiles.

"What?"

"I just remember how I didn't know a damn thing about anything then," he says, his smile growing wider. He'd been a virgin, completely inept, hands shaking as he slowly undressed and touching her buttery soft skin.

"As I recall you didn't do so badly," she says softly before kissing him again.

He'd obviously been nervous, just has she'd been, but even so he was sweet, going slow, eager to please her, his touch gentle as he caressed her. They'd made love on her bed, on a beach towel, Charlie leading him along, encouraging him that she was ready and wanted him. As inexperienced as he was, Todd had done everything she could have asked from a lover, taking his time, kissing her, caressing her, stoking her desires, before finally entering her.

"Uh-huh."

"Don't forget, it was my first time too," she says just as softly. "I think we've both learned a few things since then, don't you?" Without waiting for an answer, she turns in the bed and begins to slowly kiss the skin from his navel to the bush around his erection. She lets the tip of her tongue touch him in butterfly kisses, not lingering long enough to lick, only long enough to torture him with the pinpricks of sensation that were making him impressively hard.

"Yes," he says after clearing his throat of the cotton that her sensual torture is leaving in its wake, "As I recall there was none of this kind of..." he begins before his voice grinds to a halt, inhaling deeply as she at last strokes him from the root to the tip of his cock with the back of her fingernail.

"This kind of what?" she whispers breathily while gently stroking his penis. She stops her gentle tortures long enough to slide Todd's boxers down, over his knees, pulling them off and tossing them away before bending again to feather her lips over his penis, finally kissing him there.

He can't speak as she kisses him, her lips becoming familiar with every vein, every throb, every dip and rise in the manhood she holds in her hand. The sound of her lips smacking against his flesh are almost unbearably erotic as his desire begins to roar. He struggles to remember what he had been talking about, and finally recalls their first kiss, the first time they were intimate.

"There wasn't any of the kind of misbehaving that's currently occurring," he says, trying and failing to stop the moan from escaping as she lets her tongue rest on the head of his weeping cock. He hisses when she swirls her tongue around the head and is unable to stop the groan when she licks him just below the rim, holding him tight as she kisses his manhood over and over.

"Who's misbehaving?" she wonders softly, taking his cock into her mouth by slow degrees. She looks up at him as she swallows him, her tongue slithering around the head, causing his breath to become shallow and irregular.

"You are," he growls, giving in for a moment to the intense pleasure of having the woman he loves pleasure him with her mouth. "You should know though," he continues, taking a deep breath and striving for calm, "that payback is a bitch."

Charlie offers Todd a small sexy smile before returning to her task. She alternates between butterfly kisses and strong pulls as she takes him all the way into her mouth, suppressing her gag reflex as she buries her nose in the hair surrounding his cock. His groans of pleasure are making her womanhood contract with need for him, but she continues, knowing that soon she'll have her own thirst quenched. First, though, she wants him to come, and come hard. She doesn't feel like she'll have more than her normal one orgasm, but Todd can sometimes climax a second time if she makes him come this way first.

He knows what she has in mind, what she's trying to do, and he's about to up the ante. "Turn around," he whispers, his voice a shadow of itself.

Without waiting for her to comply, he reaches for her, removing her baby-doll negligee before throwing it over the side of the bed and turning her, lifting and spreading her legs as he brings her vagina to where he can taste her nectar. When she gasps at the first touch of his mouth, he smiles.

"Yes, I would say we've both learned a few things," he rumbles, his voice thick with desire.

While she fellates him, he softly explores all her secret places, his tongue darting and probing, his lips gently tugging. He begins a rhythm that sets her writhing, causing her hips to thrust and buck as he licks and tickles her most intimate place. As his tongue lashes her, she fellates him with savage intensity, mingled with soft gasps as she squirms in pleasure. Her brief pauses are enough to allow him to hold onto his control, if only by the most tenuous of threads.

She can feel her orgasm coming and coming hard. He's making her crazy as he probes and pinches gently, the barely controlled pleasure causing her to twist and thrust, and the cocky bastard isn't even using his fingers on her yet. Todd's always been all the lover she could ask for, but over the last year, after experiencing Rick and Giselle's immersion, he's changed from a good lover into a great one. Now, since the immersion, he can more and more often take her places she's never been, controlling her as she'd once controlled him. As he nibbles, she again pulls him from her mouth so she can gasp and pant as the pleasure tries to overwhelm her. As she squirms in pleasure, she realizes that yet again he's seized the initiative from her and taken control of their lovemaking. Despite her best efforts, he's driving her to the point of no return, pushing her off the cliff into a roiling abyss of pleasure even as she struggles to avoid the fall.

He can feel his orgasm coming as her fellation drives him inexorably to his release. While he still has a measure of control, he pulls her away from his face and rolls her onto her back before turning to lie lightly on her. Hovering over her he takes her lips for his own, kissing her deeply, hungrily, showing her how much he loves everything about her, and tonight, to show her how grateful he is she hadn't given up on him all those years ago. He can feel her squirming beneath him, obviously impatient for him to thrust inside her, to possess her, and he will, in a moment, as soon as he tastes her again by kissing and licking her breasts, her nipples poking his chest in irresistible invitation.