His beard tickled her face. Scratched it a little, but she didn’t mind that, she relished it. For one golden moment she forgot what she looked like and concentrated only on what she felt.

‘You don’t have to,’ said Belle when he let her breathe.

‘Yes I bloody do,’ he said against her lips.

What the hell. If he was willing, then she certainly was. As his mouth took possession of hers all over again, Belle clung to his shoulders, smoothed her hands over those mysterious silky ridged scars on his back. His hands and then his mouth went to her breasts, drawing out her nipples until she thought she was going to simply go crazy – and then he moved lower, lower, until she cried out, spread herself for him, begged him to just do it, hurry, please hurry.

‘No, I’m not hurrying this,’ he said, trailing kisses back up her body. He breathed against her neck. His eyes met hers and he was half-laughing. ‘I’ve waited too long, I’m going to make it last. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks, driving myself mad with it.’

He wanted her. Her – poor ugly Belle. Her hands slipped down between them and she felt how much she was desired as she fastened her fingers around that hard quivering column of flesh that jutted out between his legs. She smoothed her thumb across the tip of it and felt the moisture there, the readiness that equalled her own.

‘Please,’ she moaned, and Jack mounted her then, teasingly, slowly, slipping his cock into her inch by inch, withdrawing, then easing forward again, staring into her eyes all the time, taking leisurely pleasure in the sensations. Over and over again he teased her, teased them both, until he could take no more and pushed hard into her, convulsing.

Even then, when his pleasure was complete, he took care of hers, stroking her, caressing her, and finally bringing her to a wild pulsing orgasm that drew gasps of delighted surprise from her, blowing her mind with its intensity.

129

When the break came, it came so suddenly that it caught Ludo off-guard, but that was probably just as well. Exhausted after yet another long day traipsing around the countryside, Ludo and Nipper were in another country pub, in another set of substandard rooms with no minibar, a shower that spat at you, a mattress like to break your fucking back, in fact no nothing. Ludo was so pissed off with this situation now, so done with it, that his patience was just about at an end.

Then Nipper knocked at Ludo’s door.

‘Come the fuck in!’ yelled Ludo, trying out the TV for the Six O’Clock News; the picture kept breaking up. He switched it off, threw the remote across the room.

‘We got a break,’ said Nipper, coming over to the bed Ludo was reclining on.