A Close Match

By Rachel Cray

This is an erotic romance novella (32,400 words) in the Maybourne Series. Because of its explicit content, this story is suitable for ADULTS ONLY.

Paula is just leaving a bar with her sister one evening, and glances at herself in a dark mirror. But it isn't a mirror, and she's not looking at herself; it's a window, and she's looking at her double. Paula looks again: she's wearing lipstick, but her double has stubble. He's a guy.
When she meets him again, people comment on their close resemblance. She's sexually inexperienced, but she falls for him big-time.
Why does her control-freak father prevent her from seeing him? And what is the dark family secret held by her grandmother? How can she escape from her miserable home life to be happy with this gorgeous man, her soul-mate?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Cray
• Release date: Jul 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465814227

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.

Book preview

A Close Match

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

Village Accounts

Kate’s Return (publication due 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 access by minors.

Smashwords Edition : Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Author's Note

To have a clearer understanding of the relationship between Paula and Dan,

readers should refer to the family tree at

http://www.rachelcray.com/general/a-close-match-family-tree.doc

Because of the diversity of ebook formats, it wasn’t possible

to include this in the main text of this story.

CHAPTER 1

Paula, we’ve got something to ask you. Jenny looked so serious that I wondered what had gone wrong now.

I turned to them – Jenny (my elder sister) and her fiance Rob – ready to listen to what she wanted. She had always treated me like shit. It was perhaps not very surprising, then, that I had plotted to kill her occasionally when we were younger, and I had always bottled out; when I was three years old, and she was five, I had an urge to push her into the pond and, when I was ten, and she was twelve, I was all set to trip her near a cliff edge to send her crashing down on to the beach a hundred feet below while we were on holiday with our parents. But now, when I was 22 and she was 24, I had grown out of such childish urges.

Will you be the chief bridesmaid at our wedding? Her sour look turned to a smile. She was always teasing me. And now she was serious.

I was thrilled. Of course! I’d be delighted. And, Jenny, thank you for asking. I’d never been a bridesmaid before, and I thought I’d been passed over again. All my friends had been bridesmaids at least once, and this was a rite of passage which had escaped me time and time again.

That’s settled, then, Rob smiled. We’ll go out for a drink later and talk through our plans. Is tonight O.K. for you?

Suddenly, it looked as if there was a glimmer of a promise that life might be turning round for me. It was about time, I thought.

Jenny had always been the family favourite. My whole family had spoiled her. Our parents had tried for over ten years to have a child – without any success – and then, out of the blue, Jenny arrived. And she was special. Very special. When I followed her into the world, a couple of years later, hardly anyone blinked. I didn’t matter. I was the afterthought.

Those horrible feelings that I harboured about Jenny gradually diluted with the passage of time as I came to glimpse the light at the end of the long tunnel of puberty. But the green monster lingered silently in the corner, no matter how hard I tried to ignore him.

My height didn’t help me. I was 6 feet tall. I didn’t look very feminine, either, apart from my average-sized breasts. I was teased mercilessly at school about my height and my looks, but I grew used to it. My big sister, naturally, was a more comfortable 5 feet 7 inches and, yes, she was blessed with an attractive face. She had a warm, confident personality and boys always sought her attention.

A couple of weeks before, when Jenny had first announced her engagement, I resolved that I had to get myself off the shelf. I rang a number that a friend had given me – the secretary of the local choral society. I had a reasonably good singing voice, I enjoyed music, and my friend suggested it might be a good way to broaden my horizons and meet people. The secretary said she’d get back to me when she could arrange a date for an audition. These guys didn’t take just anyone, it appeared.

I was settled in a job as a dental hygienist, and going nowhere fast. The dentists with whom I worked all remarked favourably on my patient-handling skills and general professionalism; most people – those outside my family, anyway – actually liked me.

But this wasn’t everything. Last year, at my 21st birthday party, I had wept. People who noticed had felt embarrassed and looked the other way, thinking I was bemoaning the loss of youth. But I was crying because I still hadn’t lost my virginity. Sure, I had had plenty to drink and that had influenced me; on those few occasions when I had been out with young men who wanted to fuck me, I had chickened out at the last minute. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a vibrator for company, and I had to create my own opportunities to get a decent social life.

Up until the time when I was 19, I had one special friend, Carole. She and I went everywhere together; we’d known each other since we were seven years old, and had always been in the same class at school.

One day she rejoiced in telling me she had suddenly acquired a boyfriend, Larry. She talked about him endlessly; I was becoming bored with her chatter, but listened anyway. As I anticipated, we began to see less and less of each other; she was far more interested in Larry than me. His body was more interesting than my friendship.

Carole invited me round to see her one Saturday afternoon; Larry was out to watch a football match with some other lads, her parents were out and we would have the house to ourselves. It was a particularly warm day, I remembered; when I arrived at her front door, I rang the bell but there was no answer. I rang again. Nothing. But I heard Carole laughing from the rear of the house. Perhaps she was on the lawn in her back garden, sunbathing, and hadn’t heard me.

I went round the side of the house, and undid the back gate. There, I saw Carole with Larry, performing a sex act on each other. They were both naked. And they hadn’t seen me.

I quickly hid behind their garden shed, and watched them carefully. Carole was now standing against a high wall, and Larry was on his knees, licking her private parts. I shall never forget her face, screwed up in a contortion of ecstasy; she held his head as he performed this service to her.

Oh, God, Larry, that’s fantastic. Don’t stop! Please! This is gorgeous!

A feeling of utmost jealousy enveloped me. Why should she have this, and not me? I put my hand up my skirt, inside my panties, and began stroking myself. I was surprised to discover how wet I had already become down there. Envy had never hit me like this before: a blinding wall of intense green crashed into me, demanding that I take whatever I wanted. If she’s going to enjoy herself, I thought, I’m going to fucking enjoy it too. I didn’t care whether they saw me there or not.

I parted my legs and bent my knees, adopting Carole’s posture, and leaned against the shed and continued stroking myself. I noticed my underwear was getting wet. I rubbed myself faster; my clit grew very excited now, and I felt an overwhelming desire to abandon my body to the oncoming force. I noticed Carole gasp; Larry moved away and she cried out. She gasped for a few moments, her face changing into a delighted smile. Her orgasm had arrived.

But mine hadn’t.

Then Carole and Larry changed positions. But I couldn’t see his dick very easily; it was hidden by Carole’s head and she moved back and forth; his face was screwed up in the pleasure of a wild frenzy. I found this very frustrating now, because I hadn’t really seen a man’s dick close up, at least not in real life.

I began rubbing myself again; I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to bring back the image of Carole’s creased face as she was being masturbated by her boyfriend.

Then I heard him groan. And shout Yes! Yes! Now!

And I saw her hand wrapped round his cock, but I watched his sperm spurt out. I never knew it could be so powerful, that it could shoot so far.

In that instant, my orgasm came crashing through. I held my breath as I climaxed, not wanting to reveal my presence to Carole and Larry. I held that moment in my mind’s eye for months to come; whenever I felt the need to masturbate, I would remember this scene, I resolved.

I quietly let myself out from my hiding place, and returned up the passage at the side of the house. My thighs were wet; I had to stop, get out a tissue and mop up the residue of my cheap thrill.

Carole disappeared from my life abruptly; she moved away some three weeks later, without any warning, and without saying goodbye. I shrugged my shoulders; I had a couple of other friends in my social circle whom I began to see more often.

Jenny had a larger number of friends, although I sometimes doubted the sincerity of a few of them. I wondered if I would see them all at her wedding reception.

The phone rang. Jenny answered it, as usual.

It’s for you. Choral society secretary. She passed me the receiver.

I announced myself.

Hello, Paula. The conductor wondered if you could spare him half an hour tomorrow evening for an audition? Is 7.30 all right for you? He just wants to determine the range of your voice and try out your sight-reading skills.

Yes, that would be fine.

She gave me the address of his home, which wasn’t too far away, and hung up.

There was another dimension to Jenny’s impending marriage; she would be moving out of the family home and leaving me alone with our mother and father. I remembered hearing about previous generations in our family – and so many other families – where one daughter was doomed to spend her life in spinsterhood, caring for her parents while her siblings enjoyed life with their own families. That was not going to happen to me.

* * *

That evening, Jenny, Rob and I went round to the local pub to discuss various aspects of the wedding. When Jenny had asked me to be a bridesmaid, I didn’t realise until a little later that she must have already asked a friend to fulfil the role, and that her friend had had to pull out because the date clashed with her family’s holiday plans. So she had chosen me as second best for the job. This came as no surprise to me, in view of all that had happened before. I imagined our mother having had a quiet word with her and insist that it would have been more appropriate for her to approach me in the first place.

Rob went to the bar to buy the drinks.

What colour dress do you want me in? I asked.

I was thinking about lilac. How do you feel about that?

You’re the boss. Lilac would be fine.

And we’d better get you along for rehearsal at the church – but that won’t be for a while yet.

Rob returned to our table with a trayful of drinks. There was a fourth glass, containing a pint of beer. "That’s