Driven Wild (10 page)

“Why the pouty face?” he asked, pinching one of her fingers between his own and drawing her closer to him.

“I’m just wondering where we two are going,” said Leah, pursing her lips. “Once you stop driving me, and I get my licence back, will you need to be here any longer?”

“Leah, honey, we’re going to take each day as it comes and leave that decision down the line. Okay?” He draped his arms about her.

“Yes. Sure,” she said to his chest hairs. She snuggled there for a little while until he swatted her bottom with his hand. “Time is ticking!”

As she began to dress, she remembered another matter. “You had another nightmare last night,” she told him.

Rick rubbed his stubble with a thumb and then shrugged nonchalantly.

“You called out in Italian again,” she added.

“Just a dream,” he said, picking up his shirt.

“It seems odd, that you always speak in Italian,” she persisted.

“I learnt it in Switzerland, French too. Lots of sitting around in cars waiting, time on my hands to learn. Must have sunk in more than I thought.”

“Plus the six months in Italy. You must have spoken it then?”

“Naturally.” He began to button up his shirt. “I don’t remember my dreams. It’s nothing. Forget it.”

He turned his back on her, a dismissal, the same as last time, when she brought up the nightmares. Leah knew he was keeping things from her. Something had happened in Italy, something significant that had brought him back to England unexpectedly. Occasionally he asked to use the telephone to make an international call. She heard him muttering in Italian to some mysterious person. His voice would raise slightly, exasperated, even perhaps fearful. She couldn’t tell and it bothered her that he refused to discuss it with her. It made her realise they weren’t perhaps the couple she believed they were.

In the car, things always seemed different. He adopted his work persona and the formality crept back in to their conversations. She increasingly thought it unnecessary and annoying. Those were the little niggling things about Rick. However, in general, their relationship had moved forward at a pace.

Sex was a regular feature, not just in the bedroom. He had taken her on couch in front of the colour television—a true luxury to have in the house. Other times, he couldn’t resist approaching her in the kitchen, sliding his hands up and down, tweaking her nipples and squeezing her bum until she couldn’t repel him any longer. The kitchen table had been shaken forcefully several times.

Out on the driveway, Rick went to open the rear passenger door and Leah put her hand on his arm. “Don’t you think I should sit up front now? I think I’m more than a passenger. I want to be next to you.”

Rick paused, weighing up her comment and he finally gave a small nod. “Don’t distract me when I’m driving,” he added, leading her to the front seat.

Sitting in the front, Leah had a proper opportunity to admire the dashboard, the leather finish, wooden panelling with knobs and buttons. All flash and modern. She reached for the glove box—a woman’s curiosity for compartments had to be answered.

“Don’t,” snapped Rick suddenly. “Don’t go in there.”

“Why ever not?” she asked, shooting back her hand as if it had been bitten.

“Just… I keep, personal things in there,” he stumbled over his words.

Leah didn’t say anything. He was hiding something, she was sure of it, just like his excuses for leaving Italy.

They drove to Littlewoods in silence. The traffic was surprisingly quiet and they made good time. Rick parked the car towards the back of the vast car park. Most workers arrived by public transport and they entered by the front of the building, on the other side. Many worked on the production lines, making clothes, others dealing with the mail orders.

Leah rested her trembling hand on his thigh. “Thank you.”

“A pleasure to drive you, Miss Leah, as always,” he said with his usual stiff upper lip.

“We’re early,” she noted. “Rather unbelievable.”

“You’ve shown you’re capable of becoming a morning person.”

“The day looks glum though, weather-wise. I often wonder how you keep yourself occupied. Another language to learn or perhaps a long walk?”

“I don’t stray too far,” he said with a shrug. “I’m paid by the day, not the hour. It gives me… opportunities,” said Rick mysteriously.

“Oh?” asked Leah.

His eyes remained rigidly forward looking, as if still driving the car and observing the traffic ahead.

“Do tell. I want to know more about you, Rick.”

He pursed his lips, rubbed his chin—a habit he used when unsure how to respond—and then finally he looked at her.

“I help out at a seafarers’ home.”

“I don’t understand,” said Leah.

“After wandering about the docks and surroundings, I found this hostelry for retired merchant seaman, veterans from the war. Many are disabled or unable to find work, or too old to work. Forgotten heroes. I sit with them. Read them letters. Write ones too, if they can’t. Play card games. Make tea. That kind of thing.” Rick’s eyes flittered about, uncertain where to look. Leah thought he was embarrassed by his activities, nothing borne out of shame, simply that he didn’t want praise. However, she couldn’t help showing her emotions, the prick of tears in her eyes, and she gave him her most beaming smile.

“That is so kind of you,” she said. “Now I know, I can imagine you there, chatting and keeping them company. I’m proud of you, Rick. You’re such a good man.”

“Am I?” he said with a scowl. “Some days…” His voice trailed off and he was back to looking at the window screen.

She stroked her hand up and down his trousers, feeling his firm muscle and her fingertips reached his groin.

Rick sighed, gave his head a little shake and then trapped her hand beneath his. “This is the real reason you wanted to sit in the front.” He shifted her hand over, towards his fly. She could feel the bulge, the movement as his cock grew and pushed against his clothing. He swallowed hard.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Rick pushed his seat back away and lowered it so that his head dropped below the line of the window. Leah leaned towards him, twisting and turning, until she managed to kneel on the passenger seat, scrunched up and crawling towards him, over the shift stick and handbrake.

“A challenge for you,” he said with a wry expression.

“I’m up to it,” she said with a grin.

She delved into his fly, seeking and finding her prey. It was a tempting, luring bait for Leah, making her mouth water and her pussy excited. Opening her mouth, she enveloped him, sinking down and coiling her tongue about his hardness as she slid down. She reached the limits of her oral penetration and lifted her head back up, before dipping down again. Her cheeks drew in and her lips sealed about his velvet skin, locking her mouth onto him and sucking hard. His bulbous tip filled her mouth and Rick moaned.

He laid there, eyes shut and breathing rapidly. Occasionally he muttered, almost a growl of contentment. Her languishing pace teased him. She deliberately lingered, tickled with her tongue and nearly nipped him with her teeth. He would tolerate it, up to a point, and then he would grow frustrated. She waited for the hand, the one that would seek out her head and a fistful of hair. The one that would take away her control and instigate his.

It came after a few minutes, the familiar sting on the scalp and the nearly forceful lowering of her head on his cock. Far from hating his intervention, Leah loved his direction. It made the task of gratifying him harder, with more spluttering and gasping for snatched breaths, but inside she stirred and her clitoris engorged. She imagined her swollen sex, the lips about her vagina, calling to her for relief.

His semen arrived quicker than she had expected, striking her soft palate with hot spurts of thick treacle. A pool collected on her tongue; she let it lie there, holding it in her mouth before gulping, almost greedily. He snorted, amused at her enthusiasm. Releasing his grip, he stroked her hair, calming her and letting her clean him with her tongue.

“You’d best get to work,” he said, zipping up his fly and raising his seat.

Leah shuffled back into her own seat, straightening her white dress.

“Your lipstick. You need to re-apply it,” he pointed out.

Leah tidied up the smudges and added another layer of rich crimson to her lips. “Look good?” she asked, turning to face him.

“Yes,” he said softly. “You always look beautiful.”

Leah spent the day at work, bouncing on her feet, buoyed by her discovery of at least one of Rick’s secrets, also the thrill of being a front seat passenger, sitting next to him and seeing his face directly, not in a mirror. She may have been left needy, but come evening, he would pay her back and the wait would be worth every second.

Chapter Seven

“The beach!” said Leah with clear delight.

“It’s a magnificent May Sunday. Sunshine, warm, and if you would like to join me, Miss Leah, I thought a picnic on the beach at Formby.”

Her answer came in the form of a kiss, planted on his lips across the breakfast bowls. A smile lit up on her face, such an exquisite expression of pleasure, with her little white teeth glinting in the morning light.

“Good. That’s decided then.” Rick rose, picking up the cups and dishes, ready to wash them up in the bowl. Behind him, Leah—a slow eater—munched on cornflakes.

She wasn’t a slow learner; that he could concede. The trip to the nightclub, spanking her on the stage, had triggered a vast improvement in her attitude. He had believed that Leah seemed unable to see where she was going, to switch direction and put things right. Yet, she had changed almost straightaway and she hadn’t been late for work since. He didn’t think it was entirely down to the spanking. After all, it was obvious to him that she took some sexual pleasure from it, even if it sprang up inside her unconsciously.

Just as he would slam the brakes of the car if somebody dashed out into the road, Leah had hit her brakes too. She had almost given up her nightlife, and if she did go out, it was to a restaurant or a café, to talk and socialise properly. Her girlfriends had teased her about her lack of interest in the night scene, unaware of Rick’s influence, and she had come home tearful. Leah couldn’t use the excuse of money, it was abundant in her coffers, nor ill health, as she rarely ailed.

Rick held her close and told her good friends didn’t judge or reject friendships so easily. Her closest friend, Jane, had not been unsympathetic and he suggested to Leah that she kept those who were important close to her and not worry about the others.

“Who are you doing this for?” he had asked her. “Because if it is just for me, it is the wrong reason. I want you to look after yourself, not ruin your friendships. I’m not stopping you having fun, I’m asking you to do it responsibly.”

Snuffling and burying her head in his chest hairs, she had nodded in understanding and drifted off to sleep. It was during those moments that Rick felt a burden of responsibility to Leah. She looked up to him increasingly, seeking his advice and ideas and taking the slightest admonishment with a contrite expression. The sullen, petulant Leah of three years ago had departed and not come back.

What would become of them, he didn’t know. He lived on borrowed time. The calls to his friend overseas had worried him. Things were said about him from afar and the implication was he would not be able to hide for much longer. His past would catch up with him and when it did, he would have to run, fast and far away.

He almost regretted coming back to Liverpool. He had convinced himself it was because he would find work and keep his head down, out of sight, but the reality was he had wanted to find Leah, to see her and know she was flourishing. However, she hadn’t been and he had stepped into the emotional breach left by her father, a position that took him to her bed and there he stayed, night after night. He was stuck fast to her.

Deep down he knew what emotion had awoken inside him. Unlike his own father, who had given it too readily to the wrong woman, he had kept his at bay, fearful of making the same mistake. His father lost his wife and never replaced her, and Rick didn’t want the same fate to befall him. Leah chipped away at his resolve, his intention to not give his love easily and unrequited. It had to be given back. Was Leah infatuated with him because he was a substitute for poor parenting, or did she truly love him too?

* * *

With a blanket laid out on a stretch of sandy beach, Leah and Rick had their picnic. Not too far from the car park, they were amongst the throng of families enjoying the sun and the spring warmth. Kids ran about screaming, throwing balls while their parents reclined on deck chairs behind their windshields. A multicolour show of stripes adorned the shields and the picnicking couple had tucked themselves between two of them.

Leah had chosen shorts—cut-off jeans, which stopped short below her bottom and were torn slightly at the edges. She told Rick they made her look stylish; he raised his eyebrows, but didn’t protest at her choice of clothing. She suspected he quite like seeing her long legs on display. Her t-shirt didn’t cover much and she had tied a knot at the bottom, drawing it snug about her waist.

Rick wore his usual flared jeans with a plain white t-shirt. Unlike Leah who had shades and a sun hat, Rick was happy to bask in the full glare of the sun and immediately his skin tone seemed to darken. He looked foreign, she thought, not pale enough for a local.

Shaking out the blanket, they returned it to the car and then decided to walk up the coast and inland, into the vast sand dunes. They rose up behind the beach, a long line of sand and tall grasses, clumped and randomly arranged. As they wandered, they kicked the sand up between their sneakers and held hands.

Leah was extremely happy, almost joyful. They were able to chat to each other, and even though they had little in common on the surface—different tastes in many areas including books and music—their childhoods had similarities, especially when they touched on their school life. They reminisced about life in boarding school: the dormitory pranks, the worst teachers, the best and kindest, and the long list of rules, which Rick complied with and Leah resisted.