Page 37 of Rainshadow

She stroked him, looking up into his eyes, then, following a deep and powerful impulse, she angled him into her open mouth.

“Oh god,” he groaned, his head falling back, as she sucked him.

His cock twitched in her mouth, and she stroked and sucked even more ardently, as though she couldn’t ever get enough of him. She couldn’t imagine she ever would.

“I want to be inside of you,” Ethan growled, looking down at her with needy admiration. “You’re so beautiful, Flora.”

She nodded and, as he watched with great interest, slid the new pair of silk black panties over her long, pale legs. She had never felt more beautiful as she climbed on top of him, staring straight into his hypnotic eyes, and lowered herself onto him. She rocked, as slowly as she could without losing her mind, her hand on his chest, his hands on her hips. She liked making him pant, making him shudder. She wanted to make him beg. She slowed down.

“Oh,” he groaned, his voice rough in his throat, “don’t stop.”

“I love you, Ethan,” she whispered, rocking her hips in slow motion. “I need you to know that. I’ll do anything for you.”

“Flora,” he said, and his strained voice said everything. “Flora, Flora, Flora…”

She felt a mounting warmth, and intense, building pleasure that made her muscles tighten and her mind go blank. She was only the hot, liquid need that pooled in her lower belly, in her pussy, radiating out. She came, a fluttery release against Ethan’s very hard cock, her body loosening like so many tight knots coming undone at once.

Flora collapsed on top of him, and he rolled her over onto her back. She wrapped her legs around his waist, softening for him, and he fucked her savagely, more roughly than she ever could have expected, his closed mouth pressed against her neck, groaning, grunting, panting, so that he seemed more animal than human. She thought of the word he’d used earlier. Monster. She could never think of him as a monster, she was too obsessed, knew she would always see him as perfect. He seized against her, crying out, and he opened his mouth against her throat, licked it once, and pulled himself away quite suddenly.

As soon as he came, it was as though he changed. She couldn’t tell if it was regret or something else, some urge she didn’t understand.

“I have to go,” he said, and he gathered his clothes and almost ran from the room without even getting dressed first. Flora sat up on her elbows and watched, utterly confused, but there was no time to ask what was wrong.

Just like that, he was gone.

18

After that night, Flora felt strangely different, changed. She knew, deep in her heart, that she and Ethan were together and Sylvia was the unfortunate third, the interloper. She thought, some days, that Sylvia knew it too, and wondered if Sylvia might give up and walk away on her own.

The day after she and Ethan made love for the second time, Sylvia was as sick as Flora had ever seen her, waxen pale, unable to get out of her bed. Flora wouldn’t have even gone to her room if it hadn’t been for the fact that the barn door was locked, which was unusual, and she needed the key.

“Sylvia, I need the keys to the barn,” she said, standing in the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light in the dark bedroom.

“Mmm-hmmf,” said Sylvia, incoherent.

Flora flipped on the light and watched her flinch.

“Where are the keys, Sylvia? I need to feed the horses.”

Sylvia coughed, and her whole body seized. Her statuesque form was reduced, diminished. There were no needles by her bed now, but there were pill bottles and empty water glasses.

“Sylvia, please I?—”

“They’re in the pocket of my coat,” Sylvia finally managed to say, indicating the closet with a thin, veiny hand.

Flora nodded, crossing to the closet door, half-opened. She swung open the doors, and right away found Sylvia’s favorite black wool coat hanging against the door on a hook. She fished in the pocket, found the keys right away, and slipped them into her own pocket. Then, very quietly, she ran her hand over the other clothes that hung there. Cashmere sweaters by Ralph Lauren, tweed jackets by Chanel, slinky silk dresses by Calvin Klein and one after another piece of beautiful, luxuriant clothing from designers that Flora had never heard of. Sylvia, she reflected, hardly wore any of it. She looked back over her shoulder at Sylvia, who was obviously sleeping, and grabbed one charcoal gray sweater off of its hanger.

Dressed in her new riding outfit, right down to the polished boots, Flora spent the morning training the horses. She mounted Mars and took him through a few exercises, but realized that, without Sylvia or a new trainer, she had reached the limit of her ability as a trainer. The knowledge didn’t really embarrass her. She just liked riding the horses around Rainshadow on the trails and around the arena. She wasn’t passionate about the sport like Sylvia evidently had been before her addictions, whatever they were, took over, and her body failed her. So she rode in circles, wishing there was a mirror she could use to admire herself, imagining that she looked pretty sophisticated on the beautiful black horse.

Since she had the keys, she took the Range Rover into town and walked into King’s. When she first stepped into the store, everyone stared at her. Debbie’s eyes widened.

“Flora?”

“Hi, Debbie,” she said.

She saw herself in a security mirror. She cut a striking figure with the tall, black boots, snug riding pants, and soft, figure-flattering cashmere sweater. With her hair brushed, and her chin up, she looked like a completely different girl than the one who had been fired a few months before. Girl wasn’t even the right word for her anymore. No, she was a woman.

Flora grabbed a few things, coffee, for one thing, since she was the only one who drank it at the house and she was sick of the stale grounds she’d had to use. Coffee, half-and-half, fruit, cheese, wine. She strolled the aisles and filled her basket. She went through Debbie’s checkout line and paid with some of the money she’d been given after her house had burned down.

---