09

CHAPTER 7

After they had gotten back into their clothes and settled down on the couch, sitting at opposite ends with just their feet touching, talking about nothing in particular, Sam asked the questions he really needed answered, "When can we do this again?" In the pit of his stomach as a fear that he had been used—based on nothing, but an irrational fear is a fear nonetheless—and that now that Belinda had had her itch scratched, so to speak, she would move on to another frat boy like the one she had told him about or a country club-type like her brother.

"I think we can meet here safely a few times a week," Belinda said, as a wave of relief passed over him. "We've got to watch ourselves, but I think that will work if we're careful. We have to act normally around the house, just as we have...well just as we have except for making out in the kitchen. I'll still come down and visit you while you're working. At this point I'm there enough that it would look suspicious if I stopped." After agreeing on all points and sharing one final, tender kiss, Sam disengaged the perimeter alarm while Belinda packed up her computer and books, then they headed away from the studio in opposite directions.

Belinda woke up feeling delicious. She still had a warm glow as her body remembered the feel of skin on skin, mouth on mouth, and mouth on skin. And yet, she felt guilty. Not for anything she'd done, but because she knew how disappointed her mother would be. Even though Belinda held little if any respect for her mother, she still wanted her love and approval and worked to earn and keep it. She knew her mother found her behavior out of bounds at times, but she did as much as she could to be the daughter Susannah expected her to be. Good looking, educated, funny, and charming as Sam was, her mother would never overlook that he was black. Shaking the thoughts away, she went in search of her mother, who was on the back patio, drinking her coffee as she did most mornings while planning her day. "Momma, I want to show you my ideas for the kitchen to see what you like before I get started," she said, spreading out a folder. As she did so, she stole a few looks at Sam, who was loading up some equipment he would need for the day's work. He was going to be doing some heavier work cutting down shrubs, so instead of his normal cargo shorts, he had on jeans that showed the shape of his ass. For just a moment, Belinda allowed herself to picture her hands wrapped around those ass cheeks as he entered her on the leather sofa in the studio, then shook her head to concentrate.

She had worked up three options for her mother, showing paint, hardware, lighting and other fixtures, along with new towels and table linens. Only the flooring, cabinets and counters would stay the same. Belinda loved all three options, so whatever her mother picked, Susannah would feel like she was in charge and Belinda would get what she wanted. A win-win. Susannah leafed through, asking if she could combine elements of two different plans. Belinda said, "Why didn't I think of that Momma? That's so much better." She knew she was buttering her mother up, but her guilt from this morning lingered and it made her feel better. "I'll get started tomorrow," Belinda said. "I thought today we could hit the salon for mani-pedis. All this sanding, and my hands are a mess. It just won't do," she continued, in a tone of voice that matched the way her mother would make the observation. Susannah smiled. Although she didn't understand her youngest child, she also wished they could be closer and loved these moments when they seemed to be on the same page.

Luckily, Susannah Sutter wasn't a mind-reader.

The mother and daughter spent a pleasant afternoon being pampered and doing a bit of shopping, but although she talked with her mother about town "society" and the exclusive clubs her mother belonged to and hoped Belinda would one day join, a part of Belinda's mind was always thinking about Sam. When she picked out her nail polish, she chose a shade she thought would make the most sensual contrast when her hand rested in his hand or somewhere else on his body. When her legs were being scrubbed and moisturized, she closed her eyes and pictured Sam's hands wandering up her legs, feeling herself becoming moist at the mere fantasy. And as she picked out a few new outfits, she was thinking about how easy they would slide off, push up or otherwise move out of the way the next time they managed to meet. It was a thoroughly pleasant day.

They returned home at around 2:30. Susannah offered Belinda a cocktail, but Belinda begged off. Instead, she headed down the hill to the construction site. "Hi!" she said, glad to find Sam working alone. "I missed you today. I was off being the perfect Southern belle with Momma, while you were here being productive."

Sam smiled at her. "I missed you too! I spent the morning thinking about you. Any chance we could meet tonight?" he asked hopefully.

"I wish," Belinda said. "Tonight is a command performance...family dinner at the country club. But keep tomorrow night free for me, okay?" Belinda stayed to visit for a few minutes. Sam updating her on the news from the radio he listened to while he worked, new leadership in Greece and worries about the foreign debt crisis.

Dinner was misery. The food was always passable, but her mother spent the evening pointing out all the eligible young men she should be dating and her brother spent the night chatting up available young women from rich families. He told Hailey these dinners were a "family-only event," but that was just to give him cover to keep his options open. He liked Hailey well enough, but in the end his plan was to marry a girl who would add to his net worth, not be a drain on it. Belinda knew the score, but it made her lose respect for Chip every time she saw him in action. She had no interest in having Hailey as a sister-in-law, but that didn't mean she liked seeing her being used.

As they left, she heard her mom whispering to her dad about calling Mrs. Higginbotham to see if her Peyton was available to take Belinda out. It was all she could do not to scream, "Don't even think about it!" She had told her mother how much she hated being set up, but Susannah couldn't help but think she was going to find the proper man for her daughter.

Back at home, she went up to her room and called Sam to say goodnight. Belinda had found out about the pictures and made him remove them—too dangerous—but they had programmed in each other's numbers so they could call and it didn't show their real names. When Belinda called Sam, she showed up as Bill Smith, while Sam was Samantha McIntire when he called Belinda.

She missed him the next morning; he had already gone down to work, so she sent him a quick text message wishing him a good day, then got to work painting the kitchen, a warm Tuscan yellow. The accent wall would be terracotta red. When she called him that day, after she had showered and was getting ready to dress for dinner, he mentioned that he liked the new kitchen color, and playfully she asked him if he had any color selections for her underthings. The thought of her in her bra and panties almost made him speechless, but he finally managed to stammer out that he thought a darker color would look good against her pale skin. "Oh," she answered, picking up on the double meaning he hadn't intended. "I think a darker color will definitely look nice against my skin. I'll text you when I'm headed down to the studio, sweet one," she said, hanging up and leaving him gasping for air.

Belinda went through her things, finally selecting a forest green satin set. It had a retro feel, with more coverage on the bra and boy-short style underwear. Over it, she slipped a flowered cotton dress. With no buttons or zippers, it could be taken off and put on in a flash. At dinner that night with her parents, she made a big point of talking about how she had worked on the kitchen all day and would need to put in a lot of time on her classes. "I'm so glad you fixed up the studio for me daddy. I can really get my work done down at the studio. I'm going to need to buckle down to finish all three classes. I'm just going to leave my books down there because I'm doing to be working so much." Again, she texted Sam just as she left the house with her bags. He was having dinner with the Sims' in their caretaker's cottage, so it was almost 40 minutes before he managed to make it down, giving her time to get a good bit of work done before he arrived.

*

CHAPTER 8

Strangely, when he came in, a sort of awkwardness settled over them. They were both coming to the realization that their feelings for each other were deeper than they had planned on, and it made things difficult. They found themselves chatting like kids on a first date, rather than jumping right to sex. He sat on the couch, while she sat in the desk chair. Finally, Belinda couldn't stand it anymore. She told him about her mother's plan to set her up on a date, and of Peyton Higginbotham's reputation for "Roman hands."

Crossing the small room, she climbed into his lap, straddling him, and asking him if he could teach her some more defense strategies. The ice broken, their tongues found each other, pressing into each other's mouths. Their kisses strayed across each other's faces, to their necks and ears. "You are so amazing," Belinda whispered. Their kissing grew more passionate, with lips sometimes baring teeth and sharp nibbles that caused gasps of pleasure mixed with pain.

Sam's sex was hard between Belinda's legs. She began rocking back and forth against him. The slickness of her satin panties, wet with her juices, was delicious against her clit, which she could feel hardening and growing. She reached down and pulled her dress over her head, asking Sam as she did if the alarm system was on. Assured that it was, she pulled off his shirt and began running her hands all across his chest, causing him to shiver with desire. Mirroring her, he ran his hands over her collarbone and down to her breasts, leaving the bra in place and feeling her nipples harden under the fabric.

"I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel," Sam said as he stood and led her to the office chair. He knelt between her legs and kissed her thighs. "Lift up," he commanded, and he slid off her panties, down her toned legs and dropping them on the floor. He moved slowly, kissing closer and closer to her mons.

"I'm so wet," Belinda moaned. She could feel her slickness spreading across the leather chair as she shivered with anticipation. Sam placed a fluttery kiss on her clitoris, then kissed it harder and, sliding his tongue out from between his lips, circled the hard hot button of her clit. She moaned. He circled again and again, feeling her ass lift off the seat to meet him as her hands gripped the arms of the chair. "Sooooo wet," she moaned. Sam snaked his tongue down her cunt, which she kept, he noted with pleasure, closely trimmed but not shaved. He didn't want a woman who looked like a little girl. He tongued her opening, finding it wet with her juices, just as she had said. He licked and sucked the delicious hole, stopping only to tell her that eating her was like licking honey. "Then you must be part bear," she joked.

He loved how easily he made her laugh, but there was no joking as he returned to his clit and began stimulating her in earnest, swirling in small and then large circles, noting where he was when she tightened and returning to that place. She was breathing hard now. "So close, baby, so close," she moaned.

"Take off your bra," he ordered. He returned to her hard and swollen clit, sucking it into his mouth hard and nibbling softly, then returning to thrashing it with his tongue. Her bra off, he lifted his hands up and began fondling her breasts and nipples.

"Oh, that's it. A little harder, please, baby." His squeezes turned to light pinches as he twisted her nipples, without ever taking a break from licking her clit. That put her over the edge, and she came in shuddering waves. He still knelt between her legs, watching her. After a moment, she asked him if he could do it again. He circled her clit gently, knowing it would be tender. He went around and around in the spirals he had learned were what her body favored, but more slowly and softly, speeding up only when she began pressing her cunt against his lips, signaling her readiness. She came again, moaning her satisfaction, and after a few minutes came for a third time.

After a few minutes, she had recovered enough to say, "Your turn now."

But he declined. "No, tonight was all about you. Our next time will be about both of us. Fair's fair," he said, reminding her that only he had left fully satisfied from their first tryst. Belinda put her clothes back on and checked herself in the bathroom mirror before returning with a tissue to wipe down the chair, which thankfully was leather.

"I told my parents I would need to be spending a lot of time studying. Are you free tomorrow night?" Sam assured her he was. He was working in the evenings now on a project of his own, something for the Sims' church, but he wasn't going to turn down an evening with Belinda.

*

CHAPTER 9

The next day Belinda managed to escape shopping excursion with Hailey, pointing to the cans of open paint in the kitchen and drop cloths spread all around. She was working so hard she didn't have time to visit Sam, but found herself seeing more of him than usual as he came up to the house looking for a tool he had left in the shed, a bottle of water from the fridge, any other excuse he could think of just to spend a few minutes near her. Now that he had seen what was under her clothes, looking at her got him more aroused than before. And knowing that that night they would be together, he found himself drawn to see her, if even just for a minute. She looked so adorable, he thought, a bandana covering her beautiful hair. He loved the long, sensuous curve of back of her neck, which made him fantasize about her going down on him, so he was always happy when she had her hair up. She was wearing a loose, long-sleeve cotton shirt and an old pair of yoga pants, but he found her every bit as attractive as he did when she was fully made up and dressed up...maybe even more so.

At lunch, he sat on the back patio where he could watch her working through the window. He adored her pert ass and wondered to himself if some attention in that area would turn her on. He didn't think he would try it tonight, but he imagined himself fingering and licking her opening. He hoped she would like it, and he she might at least to be willing to give it a try. As usual, when he saw her, talked to her or even heard her voice, he found himself sporting an enormous erection. He had taken to wearing tight briefs instead of his usual boxers during the—he didn't want anyone to notice his erections. To himself, he had begun referring to this as "The Summer of the Eternal Boner." He also felt like he was 18 again, masturbating at least twice a day to sexy thoughts of Belinda. It didn't help though. He still felt himself stiffen constantly when she was near. Or even when she wasn't. In the early afternoon, his phone rang while he was working..."Bill Smith" was calling—the name that came up when Belinda phoned him. He leaned against his shovel and listened as she told him she had to run out to get a two more gallons of paint; she had underestimated. That short conversation was all it took for is cock to jump to attention, her soft Southern drawl, so unlike his own flat Midwest accent, exuding sex appeal and promising pleasures to come.

As soon as he finished work, Sam rushed up to the house to get a shower and dress. Telling Mrs. Sims he was going out for the evening, he made a sandwich and ate before rushing out. He ran some errands, parking his car again on the back side of the wood lot and walking into the cabin. He switched on the perimeter alarm and got to work. First, he placed a bouquet of white roses in a vase on the desk. He made the sofa into sort of bed with a set of soft Egyptian cotton sheets and slid a pack of condoms and some lubricant into a desk drawer. Then he opened a book and sat down on the chair to wait. When Belinda texted him a short while later, he answered, "C U in a few," not hinting where he was.

As she walked down the path to the cabin, Belinda noticed the lights were on, but assumed she had forgotten to turn them out when she left the night before. She was surprised but pleased to see Sam waiting for her. He had come to the door when the tripping of the perimeter alarm caused his iPhone to sound. She stepped inside, happy to be wrapped in his arms. Despite the anxiety the sneaking around was causing her, she felt safe when she was with him. She took in the flowers and then realized Sam was opening the small refrigerator. "Would you like a glass of wine or a beer?" he asked. "I brought both." It was so sweet, she thought, he was trying to make this as much like a date as possible. And she was touched by his efforts.

"Beer, please," she answered. It had worked out to the perfect night for them to be together. Chip and her father were out at their monthly poker game. Mr. Sims had dropped them both off at the Dodd's house; Mr. Dodd's driver would bring the players who were too drunk to drive—most assuredly Chip and her Dad—home at around 2 a.m. Mrs. Sutter was taking advantage of her husband's absence to drink more than she felt was ladylike in his presence. When Belinda had stopped by her room to tell her she was going down to the studio, Susannah was already well on her way to a stupor. Belinda flipped open her computer and pulled up a playlist of jazz and soul she thought would set the mood. Sam slapped his head, "I didn't think of music."

"That's why we make such a good team," she answered. "You seem to have thought of everything else."

Once again, a strange awkwardness came over them both. If they had tried to put it into words, they both would have said something along the lines of, "I don't want to mess this up." But their usual easy banter didn't come. After a few moments, Sam stood and began dancing, moving to the soft beat of the music. Sam Cooke was singing about loving someone for sentimental reasons as he reached out his arm and pulled Belinda into him. They danced around the small room, the cabin turned into their own private nightclub.

"I think of you every morning; I dream of you every night," Sam Cooke sang, and Sam Greene sang along with him, the song allowing him to say things he found hard to put into words. Looking into his eyes, Belinda knew he was singing from his heart. She laid her head on his shoulder as they danced and he continued to serenade her. She had never felt like this about a man before. As song ended and a new one started, she turned her face up to him and the two began kissing. All awkwardness gone, they kissed passionately, finding their rhythm of soft light kisses, mixed with deep tongue kisses, biting, sucking. Belinda reached up and began unbuttoning Sam's shirt, letting it fall to the floor. Their passionate kisses continued as Sam unbuttoned Belinda's dress and pushed it off her shoulders. "Oh, Lindy," he moaned, "You're so beautiful."

Lindy. That had been Belinda's hated nickname the year she trained to become a debutante—with two Belindas in the group, one of them became Lindy. Since coming out to "society" meant the world to Belinda Dodd, the daughter of tonight's poker game host, and because Belinda Sutter was only doing the debutante thing to keep her mother from having a heart attack, she accepted the nickname, but forever after associated it with an experience she had despised. And yet, hearing Sam call her that, it became something special between them. A name only he would call her. "Let me look at you, Lindy," he said, extending his arm so he could admire her but still remain connected.