Thrill Seeker Read online

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Well, about your vagina, to be precise.’

  I laughed, taken aback. Liam and I generally take a while to catch up and settle into each other’s space before we start getting sexy. By now, Baxter Logan would have had my clothes off and his cock in my mouth, but not Liam. We don’t share that lustful frenzy. The ‘buddy’ takes precedence over the ‘fuck’.

  ‘Oh? And what did you conclude about my vagina?’ The word was amusingly clinical between us.

  ‘I’m making you a dildo out of cherry wood.’ Liam reached across the table and held up a thick, L-shaped dildo, curved in unusual ways. The wood was pale and unpolished, its surface channelled with rough, narrow grooves, its bulky length striated with a deep pink grain. Liam turned the object in his hands. I sat up for a closer look.

  ‘See, it has an upright handle. Easy to manipulate if you’re on your own. I’m thinking of drilling a hole in this ridge so a bullet vibe could go in.’ Liam’s slender fingers moved across the wood in synch with his explanation. The object seemed an expansion of him, a natural creation flowing from his body. The connectedness of his hands and the carving struck me as having a profound simplicity. This was a timeless craft being employed to enhance a timeless activity.

  ‘This flared part should stimulate your G.’ He ran his thumb over the lump. ‘Designed with you in mind, the anatomy of your cunt.’

  My body responded as if he’d stroked, not the dil, but me. ‘Can I see?’ I asked.

  Liam handed me the piece. The intimacy of the exchange moved me, leaving me choked, but I hid it well. Liam’s hands had been inside me so often and he’d combined this knowledge of my body with his talent and skill to design an item we could use together to make sex even more magical. I caressed the hard, rippled surface, fingertips running over a hundred tiny chisel-marks, each one chipped by Liam. Had he been thinking about us as he’d carved, flakes of wood falling around his feet, his cock lifting in his combats?

  I suddenly didn’t want to tell him about Den. Liam was so sensitive and earnest, so considerate and good, that my fantasies, relative to his world, seemed corrupt, black and ugly. Liam wasn’t judgmental but, nonetheless, I feared introducing the concept of Den might sully what we shared. How, after Liam had spent hours carving a dil to give me pleasure, could I explain I’d been flicking my bean over a bloke I’d found on the internet who’d hung up on me after saying, ‘I don’t give a single fuck what you like’? Oh, and that this stranger had been stalking me, had threatened to kidnap me, and I hadn’t called the cops?

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ I inhaled the wood, savouring its bright scent. ‘And big! And hard. I’m worried it might hurt.’

  Liam smiled. ‘It’s not finished yet. I could smooth it down if you want but I thought the texture might feel nice. It needs to dry for a few weeks then I’ll seal it with—’

  ‘Whoa, hang on! Are you saying I don’t get to test drive this till autumn? Too cruel!’

  Liam laughed. ‘I’m never cruel.’ He said it as if it were a bonus. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Adore it.’

  Liam tipped back several gulps of cider then grinned at me. ‘Last time …’ he began. He thumbed the rim of his bottle. I recalled Liam coming in my mouth, the crash downstairs, and all that had happened since then.

  ‘It was … I felt different,’ Liam continued. ‘Maybe it was the storm. I felt like I’d released something.’

  ‘You did that all right.’

  Liam laughed. ‘Something primal, aggressive. Dunno. For some reason, I felt like I could give in to an urge. An urge I can’t quite explain. I keep re-living that night in my mind.’

  I felt guilty because I hadn’t thought about it much. I’d been preoccupied with the mysteries of Den, distracted by a disappointing date, stressed at work. ‘It was great,’ I said. ‘And you can always be primal and aggressive with me. As if you need telling.’

  Liam moved towards me, grinning. ‘Roar,’ he said jokily. I tried to overlook his self-consciousness.

  He knelt by my chair, stroked a hand along my jaw and leaned in for a kiss. His lips were cider-cooled and moist. I held him close, sliding my fingers into the red-brown curls at the nape of his neck.

  He pulled away. ‘Mmm,’ he said, smiling. He stroked a hand down my chest, skimmed my breasts through my clothes then nudged my top higher so he could caress my bare waist. ‘You make me massively horny,’ he whispered.

  His hands felt good. I gripped his hair again, tugging at his short curls, encouraging him to be more forceful. He groaned in pleasure, which wasn’t the result I’d been aiming for. Slipping a hand under his faded T-shirt, I scraped his back with my short nails. He arched his spine, giving a hiss of enjoyment. I moved in for a kiss and pulled on his lower lip, sucking it between my teeth, nipping hard before he slipped away.

  ‘Ah!’ He dabbed a hand to his mouth, checking for blood.

  I grinned and he stared back before it dawned on him I was offering a challenge. He laughed lightly and moved between my knees, reading my body language and responding to my tacit invitation he take control. He pushed my arms up against the leather chair, pinning me with one hand and signifying without pressure that my arms should stay raised. He wrinkled my skirt high and nuzzled at my clothes, scattering kisses where he found skin, his free hand swirling and massaging on my thighs and midriff.

  The contrast between his slender, calloused hand and the plump wetness of his lips left my body tingling, the folds of my groin fattening with desire. I groaned quietly, basking in his indulgence until, fingers twitching, I slid free of his imprisoning gesture. When I tipped forward to cup his crotch, I found him big and stiff, his shaft trapped by his combats. My pulses raced as I explored, palming the angled heft of him through heavy cotton. A breath caught in Liam’s throat, a noise like a sudden breeze rushing through brittle trees. He gazed down at me, eyes droopy with lust.

  With a single, slender finger, he grazed my gusset. The silky fabric was as thin as molecules. My breath came faster and I felt like I was falling. I closed my eyes, blotches of mustard-yellow and violet swelling and dying in the dark behind my lids. My limbs turned syrupy and it was with some effort that I swivelled in the chair to grant Liam better access. He bent over me as we rubbed and kissed, moaning softly, breathing deeply. His body was smooth, sinewy and warm, hard muscle shifting as he moved. His work-roughened fingers scoured my skin, his touch sure and strong. Everyday life was swimming away and we were slipping towards that gauzy zone of mutual lust, no distinction between giving and receiving.

  My touch inspired his touch; his lust fuelled my lust; my gasps met his groans.

  I kissed his neck, bristles prickling my lips, and tugged impatiently at his top. When he leaned back to drag his tee over his head, his torso stretched to expose the corrugations of his ribs and the neat scoop of his pecs. Rust-tinged hair flamed in his armpits while his biceps and their pale undersides flexed athletically. He cast his tee onto a heap of lumber while I tried to ease his belt from his buckle. My fingers were all thumbs so Liam took over, stripping completely and dropping his remaining clothes onto sawdust-strewn cobbles. Muscle and sinew corded his arms, his summer-bronzed skin dappled with freckles, the hair lightened to a fuzz of strawberry blond. His cock was high against his belly, laced with veins, its stout head glossed to an obscenely ruddy hue. He stood tall and still, confident in his nudity and pausing with a thought.

  ‘One sec,’ he said. He padded away to turn the key in the rickety stable door, his arse flexing cutely as he walked. The sparseness of hair on his upper body, set against the thick, wiry growth on his legs, made him look like an escaped faun.

  I was dressed for work and briefly at a loss as to where to put my clothes. I was about to unbutton my shirt to hang it on the lathe but Liam was returning already, cock bobbing stiffly. He dropped to his knees between my thighs. Hell, who cared about c
lothes? I sank deeper into the chair, raising my hips so Liam could remove my underwear. He tossed my knickers onto his clothes then held my thighs apart, gazing down. I squirmed under his attention, feeling more exposed than if I were naked. The blood in my groin pumped harder, leaving my lips so engorged I fancied Liam might have seen them bloom like a flower in fast-motion.

  He dipped down to flick his tongue over my clit, an isolated, teasing touch. I whimpered, rubbing his shoulders, my hips tilting in search of more. He printed kisses on my inner thighs, nuzzling lightly before he covered my moistness with a wide, generous mouth. Oh, so hot, so wet. He waggled his tongue into my slit, sliding my flesh apart, and lapped at my crease, letting his fluids wash over me. I shut my eyes, mewing while his mouth danced to a languid beat, his tongue flicking and churning.

  For the next few minutes I was gone, my mind blank, my clit throbbing, as I dissolved into Liam’s slippery caress. I might have stayed in that lost space if my phone hadn’t started ringing in my bag. Liam glanced up at me, his dark ginger curls askew, eyes unfocused, lips and chin glinting wetly. ‘You need to get that?’ he asked in a throaty voice.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘Let me try the dil,’ he said, reaching for it.

  I was coasting on a high of arousal, amenable to pretty much anything. Only one thought threatened to draw me from the moment: was that Den calling? No reason why it should be but I hadn’t heard from him for a while. And friends and family generally text rather than phone.

  Liam rolled a condom over the dil, telling me the wood wasn’t seasoned and needed protecting from moisture. Well, I was beyond moist so that made sense and the sheath stopped me worrying about splinters. He positioned the hard head of the phallus at my entrance. All my thoughts returned to where I was, to the pressure at the lips of my cunt. Slowly, Liam eased the wooden length into me. I gasped at its inflexibility, crying out when the thickness of the G-spot bump prised me further open. ‘Gorgeous,’ said Liam, his energies focused on my enjoyment.

  I heard my phone honk. Text message, maybe voicemail. Fuck it. Forget it. Liam nudged the toy up and down, pressing against that tender spot inside me. Soon, I was mindless again, overtaken. My inner flesh thickened fast. I knew what was coming next. I would ejaculate. I wouldn’t be able to help it. Liam would take the release from me, extracting pleasure as no one had ever done before.

  He scissored his fingers either side of my clit and rubbed steadily. I grew breathless, dizzy. When I was close to something – I hardly knew what, to coming or gushing – Liam withdrew the dil and replaced it with his middle fingers. He hooked them on to my G, pressing back and forth, hard, ruthless and fast. Sensation crested, became urgent, and a hot cascade of bliss trickled inside me. I wailed, my pelvic muscles spreading to a loose, easy freedom as warm liquid poured onto Liam’s wrist and splashed against my thighs.

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Liam. ‘Fuck, yes.’

  I flopped back against the chair, panting.

  After a while, Liam asked, ‘You OK?’

  ‘Totally,’ I said, grinning. ‘I need a bit of a breather though.’

  I drew Liam close to rest his head on my stomach. Ejaculation, still relatively new to me, often left me shocked and drained. For me, gushing wasn’t climactic but it was damn close. When Liam had first made me squirt, I hadn’t even noticed the tipping point when liquid rushed. Sure, his actions brought intense pleasure but squirting wasn’t peaking. A lot of fuss about nothing, I’d thought. All that pressure on women to find their G-spot was due to squirting’s popularity in porn where evidence of pleasure counts for more than her experience of it.

  But the more Liam made me squirt, the better it became. My body responded quickly, and I learned to ride the rise and fall. Before long, without me even trying, I was gushing fast and hard, sensitised to its triggers and craving the release it brought. Sex with Liam was scattered with sopping-wet pleasure-bombs, an extravagant mess we made en route to the euphoric heights of orgasm.

  ‘I think we need a towel,’ I said as Liam sat back.

  He fetched a clean cloth from a drawer and I mopped squeakily at the leather seat as Liam rolled a joint. ‘Well, I heartily approve of the new dil,’ I said.

  ‘Me too.’ Liam glanced up from sprinkling grass and grinned. ‘Perfect fit. I’m thinking of making more. Not for you. To sell.’

  ‘Where? Here? Bit risky, isn’t it? Supposing the Saltbourne Echo got wind of it? You’d be all over the papers. The council might boot you out.’

  ‘Online.’ He lit the joint and inhaled deeply. ‘I’ve made a prototype of some leather cuffs. I’ll show you later.’

  ‘Oh, wow. Cool.’ I watched Liam release a slow trickle of smoke. I tried to let a decent interval pass before saying, ‘Could you pass me my bag? Just want to check who called.’

  Liam obliged, placing the bag at my feet. I rummaged for my phone. One missed call, number unknown. And a text. Oh boy, oh boy. It was Den! My silly heart went skippety-skip. I realised I was grinning and quickly stopped. Turning, I glanced at the high row of dust-clouded windows to the rear of Liam’s workshop, half-fearing a beaked face might be peering in. I thumbed through to his message. It read ‘FIVE.’

  I was unable to repress a confused, tetchy ‘Huh?’

  ‘Everything OK?’ asked Liam.

  ‘Oh, fine. Just family nonsense from my sister.’ I returned the phone to my bag.

  Liam passed me the joint.

  Five? What did that mean? Had we ever had a conversation about numbers? Not that I could recall. I tried not to dwell on it, knowing full well he was trying to screw with my mind.

  Five what, though?

  Five other women in his life?

  He wanted to fuck me five times fast?

  His house number?

  The most times he’d ever come in a single day?

  I wondered if he was expecting me to reply. I considered doing so but ultimately opted to play cool and ignore him.

  The next day, at a similar time, he sent another text: ‘FOUR.’

  My world slowed as his meaning became clearer.

  He was coming to get me. The countdown had begun. He was going to snatch me in the street or grab me in my house. Or maybe he was going to laugh when we reached zero and nothing happened.

  The following day, he picked up speed, two messages within twelve hours:

  ‘THREE.’

  ‘TWO.’

  Six

  At Saltbourne Borough Council Parking Department, the staff attend so many meetings they barely have time to do their jobs. We hold meetings to decide whether to hold meetings. When someone phones for a colleague who’s away from her desk, we say, ‘Sorry, she’s in a meeting,’ and genuinely mean it.

  Inevitably, when Den texted, I was in a meeting. I held my phone under the table, thumbing surreptitiously while someone quacked on about a topic I cared next to nothing about. His message appeared, a single, stark word: ‘ONE.’

  I kept my head low, gazing at the screen, fear and excitement making my cheeks flame, my heart pound. Words from a world where parking restrictions mattered floated around me. Mundanity receded, became surreal. Double yellow what? I held reality in the palm of my hand, a text from this intimate stranger, finalising our deal without detail. We would hook up, and soon. This was happening.

  With the moment closing in on me, my saner self urged caution. The cons marshalled to threaten the pros. We had no safeword. Supposing I got cold feet and cried, ‘No!’ when he jumped me? He’d think I was acting, creating the illusion of being a terrified abductee as part of a roleplay. I had visions of him bundling me into the back seat of his car, my protests falling on deaf ears. ‘Shut it, bitch,’ he’d snarl, silencing me by tying a stocking around my mouth.

  The thought of him ignoring me, hurting me with his careless greed, made my cunt pulse with dark, treacherous longings. How quickly the cons had become pros.

  Because the trouble was, I couldn’t imagine not wa
nting this.

  I knew that fantasising about danger and the reality of treading a thin line were different. But as far as I could see, the only significant problems were someone seeing us, getting the wrong idea and calling the cops. Or him shoving me in the boot of his car, a space as cold, dark and airless as a coffin. Should I mention my mild claustrophobia? I knew I could take control if I wished. I could refuse to be cowed by sneery comments about lattes and insist on discussing the kidnap scenario beforehand. I could state my limits, fix a safeword, arrange a time. We could draw up a contract so everything was crystal clear. And if he didn’t like that approach, well, the deal was off. I would return to internet dating with renewed determination and find someone else to play with.

  But, being honest, I wanted our arrangement to continue along its same uncertain track. I reckoned if I genuinely wanted us to stop at any point, I’d be able to communicate that. I would change my body language, address him directly and say something crisp and efficient, such as, ‘I would very much like this to stop now. I am no longer enjoying it. Thank you.’

  Only an idiot would misread that and be unable to distinguish it from me saying, ‘No, stop!’ when I was feigning resistance. And Den wasn’t an idiot. I could trust him to set safe parameters and not put me in serious jeopardy. After all, Baxter and I didn’t start with an agreed safeword. He learned to read me in bed and I worked to show him how I liked it, just as a couple might do during vanilla sex. And the limits of our play flexed and expanded as we got to know each other better.

  Besides, I’d explored kink online and I knew safewords weren’t compulsory. ‘Edgeplay’ was a concept I’d recently discovered and I’d added it to my mental BDSM dictionary along with other words which had once seemed peculiar in the context of sex, such as ‘scene’, ‘submission’ and ‘play’.