Lessons and Lovers by Portia Da Costa Page B

disturbed you,” she said, at a loss for anything else. As she watched, he shifted slightly in the great leather wing chair and her own sex shivered at the thought of how sticky and tingling his must be.
    “It’s perhaps as well,” he replied, his voice astoundingly even as he closed his book, put it aside and rose politely to his feet. Hettie felt awed by him, taken aback that he could still be so self-possessed at a moment when another man might be tongue-tied and blushing with embarrassment. She felt herself blushing instead, her mind filling with images that were probably just as sexy as the ones to which Darryl had been masturbating.
    Even when he wasn’t coming, her handsome houseguest looked a picture. He’d obviously showered and changed, because his coal black hair had a soft damp sheen to it and his skin looked deliciously fresh. His form-fitting jeans were the same ones he’d arrived in, or some very similar, but he’d put on a clean shirt to come down to dinner. Another silk one, but this time short sleeved in a shade of palest lemon. The misty color was a perfect foil for the drama of his unbound hair and the rich butterscotch-brown of his skin and Hettie couldn’t imagine any model in any magazine looking sexier.
    “What’s your book?” she inquired, trying hard not to sound squeaky and self-conscious. As she sat down in the chair next to Darryl’s, he flopped down beside her and handed her the book.
    Images d’Amour was a gorgeous volume. With an art degree and several years spent working in galleries before her marriage, Hettie could appreciate the work aesthetically as well as sexually. Perfectly shot photographs of couples making love were presented starkly with no superfluous text. It was no wonder that Darryl had become aroused. The photos got to Hettie too, every time she looked at them.
    “It excited me,” he said as she flicked the pages, his tone quite casual as if masturbation was a subject that virtual strangers often discussed. “I hope you don’t mind… What I was doing, I mean?” His brown eyes regarded her steadily, without a trace of self-consciousness or shame.
    “No—not at all,” she stammered, feeling a hot blush rise in her cheeks and her nipples stiffen involuntarily in her thin black bodice, “It’s natural. Everyone does it.”
    “Do you, Lady Hettie?” he asked softly.
    “Please… It’s just plain ‘Hettie’,” she whispered, evading him.
    “Hettie.” The word was like an intimate caress itself, the way her inquisitor said it. “Hettie, do you touch yourself? Do you give yourself pleasure?”
    “I-I—” The answer was locked in her throat. She wanted to tell him but her vocal chords felt as if they were paralyzed.
    “I’m sorry, Hettie, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he said quietly, “It’s just that I know so little. Or at least I do now… Sex seems to be one of the areas that was blanked by my head injury. It’s very frustrating.” He bit his full lower lip and something melted inside her, “I’m a man, Hettie, but I can’t remember what it’s like to be one.”
    He spoke haltingly, but the expression on his pure, serious face told a clearer story. And for a moment, Hettie felt the maddest urge to try and fill in the gaps for him. He could be hers now if she simply flipped down the straps of her dress, drew him to her naked bosom then lay back and let him take her. She imagined his stiff eager cock rising again, nudging against her, then sliding in. It was only a short while since Starr had pleasured her completely and thoroughly, but astonishingly she already felt like making love again.
    Her fingers twitched as if she were really about to loosen her clothing, but then a bell tinkled high and sharply in the corridor outside the library.
    “It’s the dinner bell,” said Hettie as Darryl quirked his sleek black eyebrows. She felt confused and disorientated. How could she feel attracted to Darryl when Starr’s cool, intense