Kate's Return

By Rachel Cray

Kate is recovering from a disastrous five-year on-off affair with a nasty guy. Once the relationship is firmly severed, his friend declares his love for her - although she's attracted to the charms of the brother of an old school-friend. But is he all that he seems? And could she really be happy living with him for the next sixty years?

She's surprised by some exceptional qualities of her ex-lover's friend - there's no doubt that he could make her very happy and fulfil her sexual cravings - but would there be room for him in the change of lifestyle that she's planning, and which she desperately needs?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Cray
• Release date: Aug 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466173538

Rachel Cray

Rachel writes erotic romances to two sub-genres: the first she calls "law firm erotic", where her characters are the horny partners and employees of a U.S. law firm, and whose spare-time activities may best be described simply as sex-related. The second sub-genre she calls "village erotic", where the cast are the horny inhabitants of Maybourne, a fictional old market town in the heart of England with a number of olde worlde villages, Tudor buildings, a ruined abbey and other picturesque features in both rural and urban settings.She has worked in several European countries, first as a secretary and then as an executive assistant, before returning to her roots in Surrey, England, and close to London; for many years she was the director of administration at the London office of a large U.S. law firm before leaving to run her own recruitment company. Now in semi-retirement, she devotes most of her spare time to writing erotic romance novellas, drawing on her life's experiences in a variety of fields. She is married with children and grandchildren.

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Kate’s Return

by Rachel Cray

An erotic romance in the Maybourne Series

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Rachel Cray

Rachel Cray’s home page

Discover other titles by Rachel Cray at Smashwords.com:

A Stranger in My Bed

Jack, Me, and His Lodger

Interview For Love

A Close Match

Village Accounts

Working Overtime (publication due late August 2011)

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons (living or dead), actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission by the author, except for brief quotations for review purposes.

This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

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CHAPTER 1

All right, Ricky, I’ve had enough! It’s over. You’ve gone too far this time.

Come on, Kate, it’s not the end of the world.

"It’s the end of us, Ricky. Can’t you get that into that thick head of yours?

Let’s be calm about this. We’ve been together, on and off, for five years, right? So I reckon we should know each other pretty well by this time.

So, explain.

You caught me… pleasuring myself. What’s wrong with that?

"I was in the next room. I was available for you. God knows, I’ve dropped enough hints that I was available, I was horny, and yet you prefer… your hand."

I thought you were off sex.

I mentioned to you last week that I was having my period. That’s all. We still had sex, of a sort.

I hadn’t denied him access to my body then. We had lain on my bed while I sucked his dick until it was hard and long. Then he had climbed on top of me, pushing his dick between my legs, rubbing against the panties that I still wore. He said he liked the friction of the cotton against the tip of his cock; it excited him and made him come faster. I must confess that I derived some enjoyment from it too, especially when he remembered to finger my clit. But that time, last week, he hadn’t remembered. And I had reacted in a somewhat cool fashion when he had shot his load into my underwear, turned away and virtually ignored me for the next 30 minutes.

Sorry, Kate, he was saying now, Work has been difficult recently…

Fuck work! And what about those other women? Three one-night stands in as many months. Don’t think I don’t know about them.

He paused. He hadn’t realised that I knew. O.K. I’ve been under a lot of pressure, and I didn’t want to hassle you. I thought it would be best to leave you alone while I was having these problems. It would only have made it worse between us.

That’s the lousiest excuse I ever heard. Ricky, our relationship is over.

Who told you about the one-night stands, anyway?

Mike.

Mike! My best friend! Have you been seeing him, then?

No, not in that way. I saw him in the street last week, and he mentioned it.

"He mentioned it. While you were pouring your heart out to him in a public place about our most private things, he mentioned it. I’ve had enough!"

Ricky stormed out. I breathed an exhausted sigh of relief. I hoped he would finally get the message.

Everything had been fine for the first couple of years, although it took a while to get the relationship going right at the beginning; in retrospect, perhaps I had been pushing him too hard. I wanted us to set up home together, but he resisted. Then, after our first major row, we split up for a few months. After what we might (jokingly) call a cooling-off period, we got back together again, but on his terms. We had sex once a week if I was lucky.

After a while, we drifted apart; he got himself engaged to someone else – everyone said he did it on the rebound – but his fiancée saw through him and broke it off after just three months. He persuaded me to take him back: that was the worst thing I could have done. But I felt lonely.

Ricky had been acting strangely over the last couple of months; he hadn’t come near me to make love. Then his friend Mike told me that he’d had a string of flings with other women around town, sleeping with each of them for a single night.

The final straw came ten minutes before the start of our argument, when I walked into the bathroom and found him standing with his jeans at his ankles, masturbating into the toilet. He looked so pathetic. I wasn’t good enough for him any more. And he had done it in my home, in my bathroom, and in my toilet.

Although I was furious with him – fury is an understatement, but I can’t think of a stronger word – I was just as angry with myself, for having tolerated him for so long. Mike had privately told me, on several occasions, that I could do much better. I couldn’t understand why Mike had strung along with him for so long. He was a really nice guy, with a personality which was the total opposite of Ricky, and I couldn’t understand why no girl had snapped him up. I meant to tell him so, but the time never seemed appropriate.

I did a mental check to think if any of Ricky’s things were still lurking around my home. He lived alone in a one-bedroom place; whenever I had suggested he could move in with me – I had a bigger home with two bedrooms – he always claimed there were times when he needed solitude, and having other people around would cramp his style. He was a loner, and I had stupidly thought that I could change him.

I quickly established that I had nothing left here to remind me of him. Now I could move on. I felt strong, confident and optimistic for the first time in several months.

It was a Saturday; I had done everything I needed to do round the house, so I was at a loose end. I picked up a local newspaper to see if there were any special events around the area that might be worth seeing.

The doorbell rang. I got up and opened the door; it was Mike.

Is Ricky here? he asked.

No, he left about twenty minutes ago. I don’t know where, and I don’t care.

Oh. You’ve had another quarrel, have you?

We’ve had the final quarrel, Mike. He’s gone. Forever. I’m not taking him back again. I went into the kitchen, and he followed me.

Good! About time!

I’m surprised to hear you say that, Mike. I thought he was your best friend.

"No. I was his best friend. There’s a difference."

And there was a huge difference between the two of you. I couldn’t understand what attracted you to each other. I supposed it was some kind of man-thing.

No, Kate. It was a little more… complicated than that.

Because I can’t understand why you haven’t been snapped up already by some woman – there are plenty of them around who would consider themselves lucky to have a guy like you in their life.

That’s simple. There’s only one woman on the planet I want. Nobody else will do. And I haven’t been able to do anything about it, because she’s already in a relationship.

Oh, Mike. I’m sorry to hear that. Is it anyone I know?

"Yes, Kate. It’s you. I’ve wanted you for the last two years. That’s why I hung around with Ricky for so long. It was so that I could have a reason... occasionally... to be near you."

I had to sit down at the kitchen table. Well, Mike, I don’t know what to say.

I’m sorry, Kate. It came out all wrong. I didn’t mean to upset you or embarrass you. But I can’t help my feelings.

Sit down, Mike. I’m very flattered. You are a great guy. But I’m not sure that I can feel the same way about you. As I said, Ricky and I are finished. For good.

So there’s a glimmer of hope for me, then. Give me a try, Kate. If it doesn’t work… well, we can still be good friends.

I reached across the table, smiled at his face and touched his hand. Give me time. I need to think about this.

"If Ricky gives you any trouble about this break-up, you have to let me know. I’ll look after you, Kate. I want to look after you."

I’ve taken that on board, well and truly, I smiled. Let’s get this weekend out of the way, and all of next week, and maybe you can come round next Saturday afternoon and we can talk through a few things, after we’ve both had time to think about it.

Mike was six feet tall, urbane, charming, smartly dressed, self-deprecating… and extremely good-looking. But his hair was light auburn, and he had a beard; I wasn’t sure whether I fancied him. Obviously I had never seen him naked but I guessed he was quite well-built. He was around 27 years old, and worked as a freelance copywriter.

On the other hand, Ricky was slightly shorter, confident, scruffy, arrogant, and his looks were unremarkable. But I thought I could change him, I could improve him. A lot of naïve women thought like that when they became involved with men they didn’t deserve; time and again, people told me I could have done so much better in my choice of lover. Ricky was 27, too. He was in and out of work; when he had work, it was invariably as a garage mechanic. He had a really fit body, which is what attracted me to him in the first place. I couldn’t wait to get him in bed. The trouble was that I couldn’t get him into bed often enough.

All right, Kate. I’ll see you at two next Saturday.

That’s good, Mike. And, once again, I really am flattered. I quickly kissed his cheek and saw him to my front door.

I returned to the kitchen, made myself a coffee and sat down at the table again.

Was it time for a complete break? I wondered. I had an urge to get back to my roots; I was born in the market town of Maybourne, and my brother Arthur still lived in one of the picturesque villages outside the town, at a place called Elmhurst. I’d been there once or twice and had fallen in love with his home. His wife had died a couple of years ago, and I had offered to look after him until he got back on his feet, but he insisted he needed his independence right from the start. It had been a very hard time for him and, in retrospect, perhaps it was better that I had not gone to be with him.

After the ordeal I had just had with Ricky, I needed pampering. The only offer I had received came from Mike and, in spite of my high opinion of him, I didn’t think it was right. Not yet. I decided I would pamper myself. I had a bottle of wine tucked away; I opened it and poured myself a glass. That would provide me with the inspiration to decide what I was going to do to get a better life for myself.

The drink quickly relaxed me; I decided to look through my stack of DVDs and watch an old movie on television. It was most unusual for me to drink by myself. And it was almost as unusual for me to drink during