Read The Gift of Shame for Free Online Page A

trembled at the thought of so delivering herself into his hands knowing she would never be able to refuse him anything.
    Nothing was impossible – no fantasy beyond his imagination or their mutual exploration. She was free of constraint, of the need to pretend that she was anything other than a newly liberated, decadent, totally filthy-minded wanton – something which, until now, she had only ever admitted to herself in fantasy.
    He
was a fantasy made real and the thought frightened her a little.
    Finally, she reached up and drew the top light cover gently over them both and immediately felt secure.
    If she felt herself precariously on the edge of an abyss she also knew that, should she fall, she could be confident he would be there to catch her before she hit the rocks.
    Smiling with contentment, she finally slept.

3
    SHE HAD WOKEN early and stood at the foot of the bed looking down on his sleeping face, filled with a sense of wonder.
    He looked so vulnerable in repose. No sign of that energy that could prompt searing orgasm in her. She had never imagined such intensity of feeling existed. With Kenneth their love-making had been tender, only pretend daring and adventurous but always neatly compartmentalised, tagged as something the mind turned to at bedtime. Never had she imagined that there could be a passion so all-consuming that she wouldn’t be able to rid herself of it even when asleep.
    Acknowledging that her abstinence since Kenneth’s traumatic death had created an almost unbearable pressure, she knew that this was more than the sudden, and finite, the release of a bursting dam. Jeffrey had, she suspected, tapped a deep resource and opened her to a continuing, renewable flow.
    As she watched him sleep she was afraid that he might wake and find her wanting. What he had to give was so precious it should be given as a tribute to perfection and that, she knew, she was not. What she needed was artifice and the good luck not be found out too soon.
    It was as if all that had gone before had been simple preparation. In his presence she had found a fierce pride in her body. Until now it had been appreciated, tenderly kissed and caressed, but never before had she felt it so openly worshipped. With this man she could go confidently naked. With this man she could be openly wanton.
    Then, aware that his eyes were open and watching her, she straightened her back, put back her shoulders, and made the best of her pose.
    ‘Come,’ he said, throwing back the covers to show his risen flesh.
    Like a supplicant approaching a holy relic she crawled onto the bed and gratefully did as he wanted.
    First she licked, nuzzled and kissed him, and then, carefully, alert to any contrary instruction he might give her, raised herself to straddle him and, reaching down, guided him into herself.
    His intake of breath was all the encouragement she needed. Now he must be ridden like the thoroughbred he was. First the trot, then the canter and finally the gallop.
    It wasn’t until he cried out and grasped her that she realised the flame that had been heating her had come as much from his hands, rhythmically slapping her buttocks, as from the reliquary buried deep between her thighs.
    Feeling him gone from the field she lay beside him and wished away the time that would pass before his next arousal.
    ‘What am I to do with you?’
    ‘Anything you want,’ she told him.
    ‘You know that I can’t let you go?’
    ‘I’ve nowhere I want to go.’
    They lay silently exchanging caresses for a moment before she found the agony of him not being inside her more than she could bear. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ she asked.
    ‘I insist,’ he said softly, and added a kiss to the breast closest to his mouth.
    She reached for his head as tiny darts of flame came from his lips through her nipples to the pleasure places in her brain.
    ‘Coffee,’ he said bringing her from her tantalising fantasies.
    Reluctantly, she rose from the bed and, in a reflex