Possessed by the Force of Nature

POSSESSED BY THE FORCE OF NATURE

1

Luke was relieved that the woman who waved to him as he pulled up on the driveway would not know just what an effect she still had upon him. He was tired after a long drive over busy roads congested with summer holiday traffic, but the sight of the estuary through the trees that lined the route had begun to lift his spirits. And now the sight of Harriet Thompson was completing the process of easing him into the mood for a few days' break and with the hope that the fine weather would last for a while longer.

"My folks told me that I might meet you!" he called out, his voice light. Luke stretched even as he gazed at her. Harriet was seen to put a box into her car. "Is your packing up going as you hoped it would?"

She waited to answer him until Luke closed the space between them. "Yes, I guess so. It's difficult after so many years of coming here for family holidays."

There was a vibrancy about her, now, that he remembered before loss took its toll upon her. An unbuttoned beach dress, floaty and colourful, was worn over a green T-shirt and denim shorts, leather wristbands and beaded bracelets adorning her wrists, a colourful bandana tying back her blonde hair and so much a reminder of the woman he had so often seen when chance brought them all together. In the summer he would often call on his parents as they stayed in the beach house that was a neighbour of the Thompsons.

Now, and for the next two days, he alone would be Hariet's neighbour and he hoped that their paths might cross, or he would spend some time with her and if she agreed to that. She might do so after what she had gone through and after the decision that she had reached to move out and sell the house.

They always got along.

" I do hope that the weather holds out for you."

"So do I, and while it does I intend to go windsurfing. You could come along and watch, take a break from the packing." He asked it on impulse yet knowing that a guy of thirty coming onto her would, perhaps, be a step too far.

"Oh!" she laughed in surprise and lifted away her sunglasses to meet his look upon her. "I need notice of that!"

"It's just a thought," Luke said as he went back to his car and opened the boot, intent on taking out what he needed. "I brought my wet suit and won't miss the chance to get out there. It's been a while since I did that."

"So, I see!"

"And it's really happening," he remarked, standing by the open boot lid but gazing at her. "The place won't feel the same whenever I travel over here."

Harriet simply nodded as her way of acknowledging what he had told her so directly. Where did that thought in him come from, she wondered, and yet she felt flattered that he should even suggest it.

"I'll have to adjust to new ways too, Luke."

She had a somewhat fleshy oval face, her cheeks fuller, but her smile was bright and captivating, Harriet's lips parting and delicate creases seen to each side of her mouth. A smear of sunblock had been applied and matched the glow on her skin, already deeply tanned after the best of the weather had so obviously been made use of.

"I'll miss being here," she now confessed as they again stood side by side and gazed out over the estuary, the sun glittering off the water and windsurfers making the most of the breeze. "I have my memories of being here and that is enough."

"It's a shame that the others didn't want to take it on so that you could visit and yet not have the worry of owning the place."

She smiled and met Luke's gaze upon her and on hearing his considerate way of saying it. "I tried but couldn't persuade them. Now I'm selling up and life will go on, only differently."

Days had already been spent boxing up the personal effects that mattered the most and could be used in her home close to Oxford. The purchasers of the house had made an acceptable bid for all the furniture. The journey had never troubled her or Mark, her late husband, as many weeks at a stretch had been spent in the cottage and they had perfected the timing of their journeys, back and forth, to minimize the aggravation of being stuck in traffic.

"Have you got something better to do that would keep you from coming down to the beach?" he asked, his voice holding just a hint of a challenge in its changed tone.

"No, I haven't got something 'better to do' as you put it. I just wonder how it will look for me to be seen with you...what people will get to thinking."

"Thinking and reality are two quite different things, Harriet. Just come down to the beach and enjoy the weather. It's been a long day for me, so far, so I just want to get the journey out of my system." It was clear to her that he had made his mind up to go to the beach. Luke smiled before he grabbed his gear out of his car and made for the house. "Sorry, but I have to get on or I'll miss the best of the breeze."

"Let me think about it!" she called after him, "what you've just asked me!"

All she got was his answering wave before Luke was out of her sight.

2

Harriet knew that she was in trouble the moment that she saw Luke strip off his shirt and cargo shorts. She now gazed at his black, 'shorty', wet suit, the arms in cobalt blue and in stark contrast to the rest of it. The suit shaped him like a second skin, the collar zipped tight against his throat, the arms, and cropped legs, as well as the body, leaving nothing for her to imagine of what was covered up.

He was tall and athletic, square-shouldered and youthful, with a lean and toned torso, so not the kind of young man who would have any interest in her, let alone to be possessed by a sexual attraction to a woman of her age. But Luke defied the stereotype, and she felt both surprised and uncommonly flattered that he should have 'given her the eye' as she called out to him and as Luke prepared to leave the house.

"You've persuaded me," she had said, her admission having the effect of lightening the mood between them.

They had chattered while he drove the few miles to a safe beach, one that was not affected by the rip currents of the estuary that they looked over from their holiday homes.

"I hope you won't mind looking after these for me?" he asked as his car was locked and he gave her a sports wallet and two sets of keys, for his house and the car.

"No, of course not," she answered, a moment's brush of his fingers on her hand as she took them from him all that passed between them. "You'll be careful, won't you?"

He smiled in response to her voicing concern. "Sure. I've done it many times before and there are no sharks in the water here."

"Don't say that!" she said and gripped his arm, feeling the strength in him as she did that. "I'll only get to worrying about that...about what else is out there."

Luke nodded but said nothing in reply to that. "I'll be about half an hour, promise."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Harriet put on her white-framed sunglasses and stepped away from him. She watched as Luke chose a sailboard with a multi-coloured sail. She wouldn't miss him on that, she supposed, as being his reason for choosing it.

She was soon wrapped up in what he was seen to be doing, riding the waves and following the course of one as it rushed towards the shore, cresting it before dipping down and riding it in perfect balance.

The effect of being with him, like this and so unexpectedly, had taken hold of her as she strolled through the lapping surf and became lost in the moment. The young man who had re-entered her life, so unexpectedly, had taken quite a different hold on her, both emotionally and, to her dismay, physically.

He had flirted with her and she found herself thinking that she wanted to get lost in the moment, or every moment that she could have with him. How reckless and impulsive, but she was soon to leave this place, and their bond, tenuous at best, would fall away. She had already decided not to let that happen until after she had taken pleasure from every shared moment, improbable as it had all seemed only an hour or so ago.

She stepped over the wet sand until a warm and drier surface was felt under her feet. Taking off her floaty blouse she stripped off her T-shirt and put on the blouse once more, knotting its tails at her tummy, the tanned skin of her cleavage and breasts, shaped by her bikini, open to anyone's gaze if they passed by.

But there was only one pair of eyes that she now wanted upon her and they were those of the young man seen boarding so expertly not so far from where she sat.

He even waved to her.

"There's time for this, for everything he has made me feel," she murmured, lifting away her sunglasses and closing her eyes as she let her imagination run wild. "It's been so long since I was made to feel this way."

Who was to know, or care, about what she might do?

3

"Phew!" Luke laughed as he strode across the sand to join her. "I'm not so rusty at doing that as I thought I'd be."

Harriet watched him loosen the zip at his throat, then slick back his brown hair from a lean face. What a strong and good-looking young man he was, and she still felt nervous at having agreed to be in his company. But Luke's confident ways both surprised her and helped to put her at ease, so she would let him seduce her.

"You did very well, I'm impressed," she smiled, those who like her had watched him, and others, surfing and zigzagging over the tumbling waves and marvelling at his antics more than those out on the water with him. "Don't get cold..."

"I'll be okay," he replied as he saw Harriet shiver, yet he liked to see her in that billowy blouse and how her bikini held and shaped her wonderfully full and firm breasts. He fancied the woman, she who now held a hand up to her hair, and adjusted the colourful narrow headband that kept her hair from becoming a windswept mess. "We'll grab a hot drink from the beach café over there."

"I should have thought of that and bought one for you," she replied, turning to see where he had pointed. His look seemed to have been on her as, when she faced him again, he soon averted his gaze. Luke did have his ways of letting her know of his interest, or fascination, in her.

She ought not to touch him but could not keep from doing so as he shrugged off the top of his wet suit and stood before her as if to challenge a reaction that was more than what she had just done so impetuously.

"Don't get cold..."

"I won't and, if I may say so, Harriet, you look different and more relaxed. I guess that you're over the worst, the loss of someone you cared so deeply about. Otherwise, why would you agree to be here with me and worry that I'll get cold?"

"What you say is true but I wish you had found another way to say it to me." She had seen Luke with a girlfriend the last time that they had met and now she wondered what had happened, if that relationship had gone off the rails and explained his uncommon interest in her now. "Is there anyone else in your life who'd be angry with what you're doing, being here with me now, for a start?"

"No, there's not...there's no one else. I broke up with Sarah a month or more ago. You met her once...when we came for a break here." Luke gave her the news in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "We both are where we are, and I'd like to see where that takes us Let's grab that hot drink, shall we?"

"Sure, let's do that."

She soon fell into step beside him. Luke's bulk dwarfed her, but the way they were dressed, two holidaymakers out on the beach, and now waiting at the servery window as he placed their orders, paid for them, and held out her choice, she no longer cared how it might look to be seen with him.

"I must look like someone just out of the water, not as tidy as you look with your hair under control because of that scarf."

Harriet looked for her beach comb, the tines evenly and widely spaced. "Here, tidy yourself up. I can't be seen with just any windsurfer..."

"No, and now our hair's mixed on this." Luke grinned as he said it. He wanted to see her reaction as he brushed his fingers over the comb and eased out the tangle of hairs that were to be seen in it.

"And our thoughts are together on this moment too, Luke. That's the place that I'm in now."

She felt like someone being drawn into pursuing a one-night stand, a spontaneous and lustful affair, and that there was no real reason for her not to do so, or not to succumb to whatever Luke might ask of her as the minutes of them being in each other's company continued.

They took their drinks and a snack and sat on the sea wall, shoulders brushing against each other, and felt the warmth of the afternoon sun on their backs.

Harriet realized that she wanted to be here and with him.

♥

As Luke drove over the busy beach road she felt his closeness and recalled their easy chatter as they shared a hot chocolate. Luke kept saying what a raging stroke of good fortune it was to have met her again, despite the circumstances and her being here at all after what had happened. She wondered if there was any point in not giving in to her instincts and the desire that Luke's actions and words had aroused in her.

Given the circumstances, they had talked enough and she would not be alone for much longer in preparing to move out of her holiday home. Others in the family would be travelling over and the job completed. Then she would be gone and all that she would have left would be her memories of how it had once been here and what she wanted to happen.

In the meantime, who would be harmed by what she now felt as the answer to the surges of loneliness she could succumb to? She had that unmistakable feeling of yearning deep in her body that provoked her to speak out, the closer they got to her house.

"There's something that I wanted to ask of you," Luke said as if reading her mind as he drove up the steep hill. He turned into the lane that they both knew so well and that she would soon, in a matter of days, leave behind.

She gripped the hand that offered a slow caress to the soft skin of her thigh.

"The answer's 'yes', I want that too. You can shower in my place...but later." She looked across the space between them. "Have I misread anything in what you've said and done almost from the moment that you arrived?"

"No, and we live for the moment, Harriet," he agreed and met the gaze of an assured woman.

"Yes, and that's all I can offer or expect at a crazy moment like this. I'll leave the side door open, but don't be long."

4

Luke was soon with her, his wet suit shorts replaced by chinos and his toned body, which she had gloried in when down on the beach, now covered by a loose-fitting shirt, mostly unbuttoned, and the sight of him a provocation to her.

"Tell me if I'm being selfish," he smiled as Luke reached out to her, the fingers of both hands combing through her hair as he was drawn into a slow, tentative kiss. Harriet soon embraced him, the first man to have sought anything of her for what had felt like an endless stretch of loneliness.

"You could say the same to me," she murmured, appreciating the slow kisses that he pursued along with the light caress of his fingers to her neck. They sent little shocks of longing down her spine. Any remaining doubts about what she was to pursue were gone.

She kissed his throat and breathed in the lightest of body scents, the aroma a mix of what she believed might be ginger and with a hint of leather, manly, and no doubt relied upon to take away what the wet suit may have left on his skin.

"I wondered about you whenever we were down here at the same time, and I liked what I saw and what you sometimes wore...rebellious and trendy...just as you are now...with those bracelets and how you've painted your fingernails...the works."

"You don't need to wonder anymore."

"No, I don't, and I want the woman that I see."

Luke pulled back, away from her kisses, and looked into her eyes before they kissed again, deeper and for longer, each moving against the other as slow steps were taken into her home, dodging the boxes of packed items that littered the floor.

"In the bedroom, not here...come on!"

Harriet pulled on his hands and they rushed into her bedroom dominated by a large bed, the walls now bare of any pictures and the late afternoon sunshine streaming in through the window. Luke couldn't restrain her from breaking out of his embrace and rushing to twist the rod that closed the vertical blinds.

She languished in his embrace for a few moments before she turned and, with trembling fingers, she helped him loosen one button of his shirt before Luke pulled it over his head and she saw again the wonderful tone of his body and that she now touched in a wondering caress of her fingers. As if they would take turns, she lifted the hem of her T-shirt and felt the brush of his fingers to her skin as Luke helped her.

He then felt the brush of her hands on his back and he reached out for her, clutched her hips as Harriet slid her hands over his stomach and tugged loose his chino shorts, and pushed her hands down under the waistband of his briefs. He shivered on feeling her breath on his back and in response to the clamp of her hands on him.

"Now I have you and don't have to imagine what you would bring to me!" Harriet slipped under his arm and gazed up at him. "Well?"

"I see how beautifully made you are," he murmured in reply, as the sight of her weighty and rounded breasts were exposed to his gaze and wondering touch, her breastbone showing shallow creases, a large brown mole on the curve of her left breast, and yet stark against Harriet's tanned skin.

Nothing could detract from her ample and curvy beauty and the sight of them, and the swell of her tummy, provoked him to reach out and touch, to offer the first of his caresses to a body that she was not ashamed to reveal.

Harriet sought his caresses and kisses on her skin and reached out to coax him into doing so.

She clung to him, pressed her lips to his skin and she felt the brush of his fingers to her breasts. She did not need to encourage his claims as Luke's lips, then open mouth closed over them and sucked on her nipples, her hand soon in his hair as she guided him in his slow claims upon her.

"Yes, do that for me," she heard Luke say as she groped for him, then tugged at the fastening of his chino shorts.

They felt no shame as they stood naked, light caresses being offered as they devoured the sight of their bodies. She stroked his erect penis, wonderingly, as she looked down at it arcing from his toned belly. Luke trailed slow touches to the tumble of her breasts before his hands drifted down and gripped her hips.

"Now you know how it is for me," he said against her parted lips, his tongue darting in before they shared in greedy kisses, all restraint now forsaken.

Harriet had only a fleeting thought that, perhaps, she should stop this, or enjoy only some moments of foreplay, but his touches aroused spasms of longing and the first flush of wetness that let her feel that she was ready for all that would follow.

She held onto him fiercely and murmured in his ear, her hot breaths making him shudder.

"Do it for me. now! I didn't know about this, about what you may have felt about me or is it more a case of what you now feel about me?"

Harriet had asked him in dismay on feeling the press of his erection against her as she was embraced. Either way, she wasn't about to complain as she needed some wayward distraction and Luke was as good a man to offer that as anyone that she knew. Only, he was direct in his ways and made no secret of his desire to be with her so soon after his arrival. It was as if it had all been planned between them.

That was what she loved about the moment, the spontaneous fall into a whirlpool of longing and consummation.