Reckless Moments for Laura

Laura wondered about it all, how she had come to be in his life and that of his family, Neville Anderson's divorce from his children's mother matched by the irrevocable breakdown of her relationship with a man who had abused her and that her successful counselling business had made him extremely jealous of. It had seemed an unlikely match between her and Neville, a holiday fling that had occupied the three weeks they had been on the island of Barbados. She had extended her stay by a week and, without the least sign of embarrassment, moved into his small suite of rooms overlooking the ocean. It had been a wondering distraction for them both, but from the moment of their first encounter on the beach when Neville had been absorbed in skimming stones off the tranquil sea surface, to a subsequent affair, the companionship discovered had defied any explanations other than that they had 'found the one' for them.

Neville didn't dwell on the thought that he had believed it to be so once before and when he had married Elizabeth Howden. Nor did he choose to dwell on Laura's past life and loves, save, as she had told him, that it had been eventful but never emotionally rewarding.

Laura had chosen to sit down by his side and watch Neville skim stones. She had even done it for herself as they talked, placing rope sandals by her side, between them, and pushing her fingers through shoulder-length auburn hair that she often braided to the nape of her neck and fastening it with a colourful bow or beaded grip. It was a low-maintenance idea, given that she loved to swim. After a few days out in the sun, streaks of natural blonde had begun to appear and Neville's captivating laugh, the creases on either side of his eyes as he did so, his undoubted and uninhibited ways of dancing with her, had made their time together on the island simply pass by in a romantic and passion-filled whirl.

Her relationship counselling business continued to be a raging success and it kept her in London for many days of the week, but she always drove up to the Anderson's home and there she would 'live' with Neville and try to fashion a bond with his son and daughter, Josh and Becky.

The girl was eighteen, or so, and moody. She was belligerent along with it and Laura knew that it would take some time for them to accept her as their father's companion. Loyalty, she thought, could only be stretched so far but in her relationship with Josh other instincts had soon come into play and could have wrecked what she had found with Neville.

'Take care of all that you have' her business often counselled, but for a moment she had ignored that advice.

♥

'Hi, so you're in here,' she was startled to hear a voice say cheerily. 'I followed the sound of you humming.'

Laura turned to look his way and met Josh's smile along with his appraising glance upon her. It again showed overt interest in her. It also hinted at renewed confusion in his mind.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the oval mirror that hung over the fireplace in what had once been a parlour but now served as a utility room. The sunlight streaming through the window made her long, unfastened, hair glisten as she turned to look at him, occasionally, as she ironed clothes for the day.

Neville's silk bathrobe was tightly fastened at her waist and shaped the press of her breasts against the fabric. Its hem was just above her knees and Josh would have seen her slender legs and that she stood barefoot before him, neatly painted red varnish on her toenails, as on her fingernails. Her hair did look a mess but she sensed that he did not notice that, at all.

She suppressed a sigh. This could get complicated as she felt that it was only too easy to look his way; more difficult to understand the sudden flush of longing that she now felt on seeing him and knowing that they were alone in the house. Neville had left for an early start at the porcelain factory that the family had owned for generations and had managed to trade on, to survive market turmoil through many difficult years that had included the pandemic.

'Hi,' she answered, suppressing a sigh of unease.

'Sorry, if I startled you,' he smiled. Josh leaned casually against the door frame, his reticence of other times when they were all together, for meals, no longer evident. 'Dad's out, I suppose?'

'Yes, Josh, he is,' she told the slender-faced young man, his features more relaxed and Josh's eyes taking in what she was wearing. She wondered if it had been wise not to get dressed before she had gone downstairs to do some ironing. Neville's dressing gown was scant cover for her body although she loved to feel the cool fabric against her skin. 'How long have you been standing there?'

'It's only been a few moments. Why Laura, is it a problem?'

'No, never mind,' she said on a shake of the head and resumed her ironing. She could not help but wonder about him, turning occasionally to look his way only to see that Josh continued to lounge against the wall, with one hand in the pocket of his stressed jeans and evidently at ease. His bulk seemed to fill the space and he now exuded confidence in what he was doing. Neville had told her of his son's many girlfriends, and the trouble he got into with some of them. Neville had also spoken of his son's feckless nature and a casual indifference to another's feelings when confronted about his behaviour.

'I don't mind you being here, you know?' he now chose to tell her.

Laura smiled. I've gathered that much, she thought.

She saw his eyes narrow as if he'd taken in something new about her. Perhaps it was the way that she moved or the slip of the silk over her skin. As her tan faded so the freckles on her breastbone, on the bridge of her nose, and her arms became more pronounced. The effects of the Barbados sun on her auburn hair, the sun-bleached strands that she was so pleased with, would remain a while longer.

She had become the centre of his attention and wondered where she was to go with that. Josh gave every sign of coming onto her and here she was, scantily dressed and struggling to quell the rushes of contradictory feelings that his presence and what she had heard of him, aroused in her. She too had been there, on first seeing him such a short time ago. How disconcerting to know that her interest in the young man had never quite left her, despite Neville's assured, tender, and deeply loving ways.

'I'm glad you don't mind. There's no point in endless arguments about what your father's been through, is there?'

'No, quite the opposite, in fact,' he laughed. 'I need someone to help me with Becky. She just wants to stress out...to make our lives and yours, in particular, so bloody messy and complicated. As if we haven't had enough to deal with...to get through, you know? My mother splitting, just like that!' The snap of his fingers, to both hands, echoed in the room and startled her for its intensity. 'Sorry, but it gets to me sometimes.'

'It's okay. Neville's told me about it.' She smiled again, quickly, nervously. 'And there's Becky. She's changed. She's met Dylan...seems serious about him, already.'

'We'll have to see, won't we?'

She heard his sullen tone as she recalled a recent weekend when they had all been together for a barbecue lunch that they had all worked at preparing.

'You and Leanne being with Dylan and Becky...you all got on so well at the weekend, I thought. Your father thought so too.'

'Yes, so he said.'

He'd drawn closer and she had met his look upon her as the blouse was laid out on the ironing board, pressed time and again, needlessly, as they talked of things that concerned them, most of all.

She made to unplug the iron.

'Here, let me do that?' he said helpfully, brushing past her. Their shoulders touched; her hand brushed his strong arm and she saw how his biceps flexed under his smooth, lightly tanned skin. 'I'm glad we can talk for a moment. Becky's so bloody confrontational and possessive, sometimes. She puts everyone off...guys mostly...guys who'd like to be with her. There were guys at school who didn't want the mess and tangle that she brings. Being away at boarding school, the two of us, was bad enough.'

They stood awkwardly close, just talking, and she heard again the bitterness in his tone as he talked of having been sent away from home. Under the bravura there also lay a deep feeling of being kept at arm's length from those he cared about. She had heard those that she counselled speak of what they had perceived to be another's indifference to their feelings, so why should they care when they pursued those ways too?

'And you're not like that, are you Josh? Not deep down.'

'You've noticed?' he smiled and seemed to visibly relax. His look upon her had softened and, in his look upon her, Laura felt a challenge. 'That's something...'

'I'm beginning to do that,' she answered, 'to notice how it is here between us all.'

It was difficult not to, sometimes, she thought, trying to grab her blouse and show Josh that she was intent on leaving him and getting dressed and that their chat was over.

Josh saw her look down at the ironing board, a frown of indecision on her face.

'I'll deal with that too, okay?' he soon told her.

Laura saw again the soft ripple of his arm muscles as he handed her the blouse. The board was soon stowed away in the ceiling-height cupboards that flanked one wall of the room. It served as a workspace and a sitting room, a place to get out of rain-soaked gear as and when the need arose. A battered, but comfortably old, armchair that had been covered in what was now a faded floral fabric, stood in one corner by a table with an oil lamp set at its centre. She had found it homely but now it was a place for a rendezvous with Josh, a place to talk and whether she wished it or not. No one, least of all a young man of Josh's age, had come onto her in quite the way that he had and continued to do.

'Want a coffee?' she blurted out, disconcerted. Crazy as it might seem, she had begun to think of what could follow these banal exchanges and how to deal with them.

'No...no thanks,' he soon corrected.

'Then I'll go and get dressed. Your father will wonder what I've been doing all this time.'

'You've been chatting to me, but you can please yourself,' he snapped moodily all of a sudden. His eyes never left her as Laura fussed with her hair, her blouse held in one hand. She sensed that he followed her every move and that Josh could not miss the dressing gown becoming loose with every move that she made. She managed to tighten the silk fastening but his devouring look upon her was again unmistakable and she could not keep a feeling of unease from creeping in on her.

'I will, Josh, and now I'll go.'

'In a moment...just wait a while longer.'

He stood in the doorway once more, blocking her way as she made to leave. 'Please, Josh; let me pass?'

'In a moment I said,' he answered, but calmly. 'You're chic...in the ways that you dress. It's so different and beautiful to me,' he blurted out. 'I saw that the moment you first came here and when we met. You were wearing that swirly floral dress and a windcheater with its patterns of flowers and studs. You looked cool and relaxed, attractive and easy on the eye...'

'Thanks!' she couldn't help but laugh even as he continued to block her way.

'I couldn't forget that and I haven't forgotten that special moment when I first saw you.'

She hadn't either. 'Stop Josh, just stop it, please.'

He had brazenly touched her face with a gentle brush of his fingertips and she had heard the hitch in his breathing as he did so, along with the drift of his eyes over her.

'Those freckles on your skin are something else, especially here.' He now touched her breastbone and pressed his fingers to her flesh as she tried to make him give way. It failed to divert him from his purpose of going with her.

She looked up at him, searchingly and wonderingly as a palpable sense of longing took hold in her and that his touches had aroused, yet she sought to disclaim it. Don't let this happen she thought, yet wondering if she could resist his advances, knowing that Josh was in the house sometimes and that he would remain a distraction even with the attention that Neville paid to her.

'Josh, please stop this! You must stop. I won't say a thing about it...what you've said and done just now. Your girlfriend, Leanne, she's...'

'Leanne's not here and she'd never know!' he flared and interrupted what she had wanted to go on and say. Josh maintained his appraising look upon her, along with a touch to her arm that held the blouse she wanted to wear. 'She believes what I tell her.'

She had just gained another insight into his casualness when it came to others, the boundaries to any relationship seemingly drawn very thin.

'But we would know what had happened, wouldn't we? There are others to think of.'

Josh shrugged.

She put one hand on his chest and sought to push past him once more or to get out of the way. She sought to persuade him to stand to one side. He didn't move, but his manner was unthreatening. Was it to be consensual...with her agreement if she allowed it to continue? She remembered what Unity had often been consulted upon; the seduction of an agreement to proceed. Regrets would be for later and for all that had ensued during those first few moments when rejection, though difficult to hear in the ears of someone being rebuffed, were but empty sentiments.

It was all about control.

Laura now felt the brush of his hands to her breasts, the soft cupping of their firmness, his fingers lightly brushing over her nipples. She knew that they were hard from the touch of the fabric of the dressing gown to her skin and the knowledge they were in the house together, but the young man's touches aroused so much more.

'Don't Josh!' she gasped in surprise, yet trembling with aberrant longing, the sudden charge of excitement only too real as one of his hands closed around her breast and squeezed, his eyes seeming to bore into her as she gripped his arm to make him look at her, and not at what he still sought to do; to touch and caress. 'What you're doing is...it's just crazy. We've only just begun to talk, Josh, so don't go changing things between us. Please don't do that.'

Even as she said it, and let go of his arm, she felt Josh's heat.

'No, I want to touch you,' was all that he said, his voice deepening.

And then, she felt the warmth of his breath on her face and sought to push him away. 'Josh! Don't! Please stop it. Don't...just don't!'

She trembled. She then averted her gaze. She couldn't keep her words from sounding like an acquiescent moan as he sought to kiss her. His renewed touches had made her nipples achingly firm and he had bent to nibble kisses to them; to press his lips to the fabric of the gown to do so and he tugged on them, gently. Hesitantly, she put her hands to his head, her blouse falling to the floor, to keep this lustful young man close to her.

'Stop that, Josh,' she couldn't help but groan in her pleasure as his hands caressed her hips, brushed over her buttocks and claimed them. He was hard, his erection brushing across her belly and she squirmed in her efforts to get away. 'Don't do that!'

'I want you...'

'How could I have missed that?' she laughed out mirthlessly.

The young guy knew too much already, how it could go to bring a woman on, but for them to continue? How would she deal with the aftermath and be in his company, even with Neville around to act as a brake on his behaviour with her?

'Please do it for me, Laura, and touch me,' he now pleaded, his voice a soft groan and in the expectation that she would agree.

Despite herself, she held his head to her breasts and groped for him certainly, felt the swell in his jeans, and heard his sudden intake of breath as she clamped on it in a slow rhythm.

'How can this be, Josh...when you've got a beautiful girlfriend?' Laura whispered trying to coax from him the answer that she could not give. 'It's...this is madness. It is utter madness for us to go on, Josh. You know it is, don't you?'

'No, I don't...and, besides that, who's to know about it, Laura?' he said certainly.

Josh breathed hotly against her parted lips and fumbled for the fastening of his jeans. They did not kiss but felt their breaths on each other's skin. They met the stare into each other's eyes as if to be persuaded of what had to happen. Josh wanted to coax her into letting him take her, where they stood or upstairs in his room.

'Show me how it can be, Laura, do that for me, please?'

Laura trembled.

She felt on the edge of a dizzying fall as she groped for him, tugged free erect and trembling flesh. It seemed to spring into her hands. She was in thrall to him, now, and to his pleas. She had also become enslaved by what she was succumbing to with an undoubtedly vigorous young man; someone she had seen about the house and garden and had thought of in ragingly destructive ways that had made her wet, aroused the gnaw of longing in her belly, even when Neville was near to her. How destructive this liaison could become for so many people.

Her two hands clamped and stroked him, caressed slowly up and down his shaft and cupped his sac squeezing on it gently, provocatively. She saw Josh look down at what she had begun to do for him, her slender fingers dragging over his thick penis and brushing the tip.

'Josh...Josh?' she murmured, dismayed at the effect she was already having on him, the thrusts of his hips making it clear that she was doing it for him, just as he had wanted her to do. But, it was a prelude to all that he wanted from her. 'Is this enough?'

'No, it's not and don't stop...don't say anything, to me,' he commanded. 'Just don't!'

She met a moment's flash of anger in his eyes, that she should even dare to continue in her denials of what they had embarked upon and she pursued despite her doubts.

'Listen to me, Josh...Josh, please?'

'No!'

To continue would be to betray all that she had found with Neville and had shared so wonderfully with him in the weeks, and nights, they had been together.

'Josh...how can we go on and do this? It's so wrong, you know that.'

She had eased and then stopped jerking him off, but Josh no longer listened to her entreaties. It was evident, from all that she had continued to do for him until moments ago, that he didn't believe her. She also sensed that he would bar her way, that they had gone too far for them to now stop and for her to leave him.

Josh gripped her hands as she resumed her caresses and tugged on him, her head bent so that she could see what she was doing for him. 'Say what you like, Laura, but you're still here.'

Laura stared back at him. 'Do I have a choice or do I fight you off? Who'd believe me if I told anyone?'

He had it all and the young guy, the stud in anyone's parlance, did not answer. Memories of those who had consulted Unity flooded her mind. She was in a place where uncounted others had found themselves, some through no fault of their own, and they had struggled to deal with. She was not one of them and should fight him off, rush from the room and accept whatever consequences would follow in her relationship with Neville.

'I'm going,' she told him and made to push past him but Josh restrained her. Despite her squirming to get free, Josh swept his questing hands over her body. 'No more talk...I'm through with that! I've had enough trying to talk some sense into you!'

He gave a lustful and challenging look. 'Quite so, no more talk...but this.'

Josh's hands gripped her shoulders, fiercely, and she was made to turn. She struggled, but Laura felt her feet being pushed apart in small sideways steps before there followed the thrill of his caressing touches to her thighs as he lifted the thin gown to her waist. There was the urgent tugging aside of her thong as he opened the way to her soft and moist flesh. His fingers stroked and probed her expertly, brushing over her slit and the thin strip of trimmed hair that covered her pussy. There was no fumbling and she trembled as he continued to caress and tug, her pussy's lips seeming to swell under his touches before his fingers entered for only a moment.