He looked angry, confused, like a lost animal, and then I rose and kissed him.

"On your back, mister," I said, and I turned him, pushed him back onto the slab.

Mounting him, I ground down. He was so hard in those CKs! Why had we ever stopped doing this?

The lichen was rough against my knees and shins. I took him by the wrists and pinned him back against the stone, just as he had done to me.

His hardness lay upright against his belly, his shorts stretched tight. With my dress. .h.i.tched up, it was just two layers of thin fabric between us.

I bore down, sliding along the length of him, that hardness sending stabbing bolts of pleasure up through my belly, my whole body alive with his heat, with the sensation of our two bodies working against each other.

"I told you," I said. "I'm doing the driving."

I kissed him, driving my tongue hard into his mouth, owning him, controlling him.

Charlie had always liked it rough. He'd always liked it physical. And he'd always liked to receive as good as he gave.

I pressed down on him. My G.o.d this wasn't going to last long at all!

The tie... it was slim, but it would do the job. I looped it around his head, tied it tight across the bridge of his nose, tucked the ends in across his eyes.

Blindfolded, I smothered his mouth with another hard kiss.

He squirmed against me, as if trying to break free, so I pinned his wrists down again even harder.

"Okay buster," I said. "No moving. You hear?"

I stood and he lay there obediently, his back arched.

I reached down, pulled my knickers down, stepped out of them, and hurled them away across the churchyard, as far as I could manage.

Then I slid Charlie's shirt up and lifted the waistband of his shorts so that his manhood sprang out to lie flat against his belly.

I took a wrist, raised it above his head, pinning him against the slab. Then I took his other wrist, and pinned him down with it. I felt a sudden surge of strength, of power. Of control.

It felt good to be in charge.

And then oh my G.o.d so slowly! I lowered myself onto him.

Pressing down against the length of his shaft, so hard, so wet...

He opened his mouth to speak and I released one wrist so I could clamp my hand over his face, gagging him with my palm. His freed arm remained where it was, taut, tensed, as if an invisible hand still pinned it to the slab.

Sliding, slowly upwards, along him. That swelling against me, the engorged mushroom head, sliding across my mound, across my c.l.i.toris in a tiny, hot explosion of sheer pleasure, teasing my opening, pressing against me, not quite in, not quite out.

I pressed down, felt that swollen head press against me, into me, and now when I slid back downwards it was onto him, his length impaling me, filling me... my G.o.d he was filling me!

Down, bearing down until he was deep inside me, until I was full of him, until I could take no more. Those waves of pleasure I'd felt before were as nothing compared to this.

I held that position, barely moving, our bodies entangled, interlocked, one. Every slight movement sent a tremor of sensation through me, and I could tell from his response it did the same to Charlie.

He pushed up and I said, "No. Nothing. Who's in control, Charlie? Who's in control?"

He stopped moving, stopped trying to move.

I tightened around him, clenching, pressing almost imperceptibly down, and deep inside me he pulsed, throbbed, and I thought he was going to explode inside me.

The hardness of his pubic bone was a focus of sensation as I pressed down. I didn't have to do anything. Every sensation appeared magnified, intensified. The hardness of the stone on my knees and shins, the tough sinuous boniness of his left wrist, still gripped tightly in my hand. His lips, firm but tender against me when I withdrew my hand and kissed him. His breathing. Every slight movement of his body.

All focused on that spot where we joined, where he filled me, where that hard pubic bone ground up against my c.l.i.toris.

A slight shift, and there was a stab of pleasure, an involuntary tightening. I held still, held that sensation, and felt the heat building in my belly, my hips, my legs. Sometimes, when I climax, it's very focused, an o.r.g.a.s.m in my p.u.s.s.y, my belly, my c.l.i.toris. But occasionally, it's more than that, a wave of pleasure and tightening that sweeps over my entire body, and this is what I experienced just then, as I pinned Charlie down on that family gravestone in a tiny churchyard in the middle of nowhere, Norfolk, England.

My back arched, my head threw itself back, and every muscle in my body tightened. I must have cried out. I can't believe I wouldn't have cried out in response to such a ma.s.sive climax, but I don't remember what wild animal sound I made, only the rawness in my throat afterwards.

I collapsed on him, slumped in a heap, the repeated surges of climax ebbing with each wave, and then he started to move against me, spurred on by the bucking and tightenings of my body against his.

"Oh no," I said. "Remember who's in charge?"

I slid up, one long, languorous tease, and then off him. He grunted in surprise, disappointment, confusion... I don't know which probably a combination of all three.

I couldn't let it finish like that, with him inside me. No underwear... That could get very embarra.s.sing!

I kneeled back and took him in one hand, two. So wet and hard. My hands ran over him, along him, sliding and rubbing, teasing with soft touches, then gripping hard, pulling and twisting, together and in opposing directions.

He squirmed and pressed, his hands free now, down at his sides, pressed flat against the stone, the tendons standing out with the tension in his body.

I lowered my head towards him, remembering that he was blindfolded still, could only feel my hands twisting and pulling and stroking. I blew against the swollen wet head of his manhood, softly at first and then hard. I pressed the tip of my tongue against the underside, dragging it delicately down his length and then back up, pressing harder, the fleshy part of my tongue sliding against him, wrapping around him, and then curling and twisting around the head when I reached it again.

I closed my eyes.

I should never have closed my eyes.

That vivid imagination thing... it struck again. It wasn't Charlie there any more. Good old Charlie. Familiar Charlie.

It was a man I'd only spoken to briefly, a man I'd never seen before today, a man who dressed like a tramp, but a tramp whose well-made suit just hung off that athletic body in a way that made me... made me want to...

I took him in my mouth, my lips wrapped around that head, my tongue flicking and lapping across it as my head twisted from side to side and my hands gripped his shaft firmly, pulling down against his length so that everything was stretched and exposed.

Slowly I slid down, taking him deeper, keeping my tongue pressed up hard so that the s.p.a.ce was small, tight, as he slid into my mouth, deeper and deeper, until he hit the back of my throat and I swallowed against that swollen head. Swallowing over and over so that my throat tightened around him, and my hands squeezed the base of his shaft tight, and he gasped sharply, a gasp that turned into a long, drawn out groan, an animal sound like the one I must have made earlier.

Charlie. It was Charlie. He surged, my mouth filled, I swallowed. Over and over I swallowed, and I opened my eyes and it was Charlie, and in my mouth he started to go soft.

Gently, I carried on sucking, savoring the changing sensation, the intimacy, as he softened.

Charlie.

Just Charlie.

I couldn't look him in the eye.

He must have thought I was embarra.s.sed, coming down from the s.e.x-driven, need-driven high and crashing back down into the reality that I'd just turned to my ex for a quick fix, that he still had it, that he could still make me feel like that.

He was smirking. That's exactly what was in his mind.

He didn't know that I was fl.u.s.tered for an entirely different reason, that I was fl.u.s.tered because in my head things had been very different. The ex-s.e.x may have been a quick fix but in my head I'd been fantasizing about Will... Charlie and Ethan's old college buddy, the brother of my new sister-in-law.

For a few seconds there I'd been totally gone. My eyes closed, and ... it was Will.

Why?

There was something about him, yes, but nothing I would ever act on. It was a whim. A brief fantasy, nothing more.

Was there more to it than that? More than just a convenient way to scratch a particularly urgent itch?

I'd seen what Ethan had, seen what he'd married into. His new wife, his new family. I wanted some of that, too, but Charlie was the closest I'd ever found. Was that good enough? Was it bad to settle for the familiar, rather than keep putting yourself out there?

He was smirking. Sitting back on that slab, his pants around his ankles, smirking.

He thought he knew what was in my head.

He had no idea.

"Come on," I said. "We have a wedding reception to get to."

I had a little black Mini with a Stars and Stripes roof. As Charlie folded himself into the pa.s.senger side I lowered myself carefully into the driving seat. So wet, and no panties... Not a good combination when you're wearing a cornflower blue dress.

I started the ignition, slipped my shoes off and hit the gas, barefoot.

"We're not an us again," I said, eyes on the road. I didn't know if Charlie was still smirking. I didn't look. "Okay?"

"Sure," he said, finally. "Sure. Whatever. And we didn't just...?"

"Just can it, Charlie. Okay?"

"Okay. Sure. Whatever."

So much for the small, intimate wedding Ethan and Eleanor had wanted.

Sure, the chapel was sweet, and it couldn't have handled any more guests than the fifty or so who attended. But the reception at Yeadham Hall was something else altogether.

An entire field to the rear of the Hall had been turned over to parking, and there was a team of red-jacketed stewards waiting at the gate to park the cars as guests arrived.

I pulled up, slipped my shoes back on and climbed out. The guy waiting to take over was slim, about twenty, with that cute gingery look I'd noticed so much over here: pale complexion, and the bluest of eyes.

What's gotten into you today, Trude? You're like a dog in heat.

Weddings. Maybe it was just the whole wedding thing.

"Easy, tiger," Charlie whispered into my ear as he took my arm. He could read me so well. "Shall we go in?"

Guests had spread out over the gently sloping lawns, and waiting staff worked among them with silver trays of canapes and champagne. A band played Charleston music in a small marquee under a stand of trees, its canvas sides furled up so that it was more gazebo than tent.

There was a terrace to the side of the Hall, where an ornate wrought-iron orangery adjoined the building. Its sides were open, the gla.s.s doors pulled back, and more guests drifted in and out.

It was like a scene from a film, a period piece. Something Victorian, with heavy touches of The Great Gatsby thrown into the mix.

The orangery was hot and stuffy, despite all the doors being open.

The air was full of music, bird calls and the sound of running water. At first I a.s.sumed it was piped sound effects, the sounds playing over and over on loop. Then I saw a tall, bell-shaped cage suspended from the roof, full of jewel-toned songbirds. If there were birds there would be... yes, a stream ran through a long raised bed to the rear of the orangery. I should have known.

Charlie took two gla.s.ses of fizz and gave one to me.

"To the happy couple," he said, and he was smirking again.

"G.o.d, Charlie," I said, in muted tones. "Give a boy a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b and..."

We c.h.i.n.ked gla.s.ses, eyes locked, and I took a sip. So crisp and dry! Perfect.

"Neil, Ahmed, long time!"

That proprietorial hand tucked into the crook of my elbow again, as Charlie steered me towards a small knot of guests. I recognized Neil, one of the All Hallows crowd. He'd been skinnier then, and less a.s.sured than he seemed now; the glamorous blonde with the model looks at his side might have something to do with his newfound confidence. I remembered Ethan saying something about how Neil had made it big in software. Anti-virus, or something.

It took me a few seconds to place Ahmed, then I remembered Hammy, as he'd been nicknamed then, an earnest young student from Pakistan, if I recalled correctly.

We smiled, hugged, kissed cheeks, and I was introduced to their partners, and the four others in the small group. There was an Amber and a Penelope, a Freddie and a Solomon, a Simon and a Ling or a Ning or similar I didn't quite catch her name over the background noise.

"Hey, Trudie," said Neil, moving closer.

I smiled, and got a dagger-like look from his model appendage. "Long time," I said. Neil had always been a bit too geeky for my tastes, and I'm not sure I liked the more worldly version before me much more, but h.e.l.l, he was one of Ethan's buddies.

"It is, Trudie, it is. Tell me, what are you up to these days? Still trying to get into journalism?"

"Publishing," I said, accepting the champagne flute he pressed into my hand to replace my empty. "Yes, that's what I do. I'm commissioning editor for an imprint at Ellison and Coles."

He looked blank, which I didn't mind. I turned half away, but he had a hand on my arm. And then there was Ahmed. "Hey, Hammy," I said, with too much enthusiasm.

"Trudie. So good to see you." His hand replaced Neil's, and then Charlie was back, slipping in by my side, taking my other arm. For a moment I thought I was going to be the rope in a well-dressed tug-of-war, and I raised both arms, shrugging them free and nearly spilling my champagne.

Like a pack of dogs. That's what suddenly flashed through my mind. A pack of well-dressed dogs, all sniffing around their b.i.t.c.h. Was the s.e.x on me that obvious? The flush to the face, the smell of s.e.x, the body language of someone who had just done what Charlie and I had just done with style, I might add in that little Norfolk churchyard? Had they somehow detected that underneath my rather gorgeous cornflower blue dress I was exposed, open to the elements?

Knickerless, I smiled at the dog pack, raised my gla.s.s and said, "Cheers. To Ethan and Eleanor."

Like the obedient dogs that they were, they raised their gla.s.ses and echoed my toast.