Winston McElroy
The honeymoon couple
CHAPTER ONE
Lifting a steaming mug of welcome black coffee to his lips, Frank Paynter smiled across the rustic table at the voluptuous brunette, his clear, brown eyes lingering, liking what he saw, as he lied glibly.
'My horse went lame on me.'
'Had you run Toby in the snow?' Charlotte Harding asked. She knew that the roan gelding wasn't lame. Having just helped her hunting lodge guest to unsaddle the big red horse, she would have noticed anything wrong with Toby when she had put him in his stall.
'No,' he answered then offered another excuse. 'It's a lousy day for hunting. Too much snow…'
'It's easier to track the game… elk especially.'
'The fact is that I wanted to come back,' Frank admitted.
Charlotte looked at him quizzically, an eyebrow going up slightly above grey-green eyes, kindling with interest at this new gambit, as she asked, 'Oh…?'
Running a nervous hand through his jet-black hair, which had just begun to show a few silvery strands at the temples, he laughed, 'I didn't feel like shooting defenseless animals.' Then, he was plucking a cigarette from the package in his heavy wool shirt pocket and lighting it in the silence. 'Actually,' he went on, after a moment, 'I'm more inclined to indoor sports!'
'Not so risky…?' she smiled, guessing already what he was thinking.
'… And, a lot cozier!' he told her, his grin changing to a frankly lewd appraisal of the full voluptuous contours of her breasts straining at her sweater, adding, 'It's also a hell of a lot more fun!'
Playfully, Charlotte cocked her head to one side, her own lustrous blue-black hair cascading down over the side of her face, as she asked facetiously, 'What's your favorite indoor game? Chess? Bridge?'
'Try strip poker!' he suggested, sipping more of his hot, black coffee. '… But, let's not bother with a deck of cards!'
'Are you suggesting something?' Her look was archly naive.
'I am!'
'Like what?'
'Like fun and games in the sack!' He said it bluntly.
'Oh…? What about that cute little wife of yours?'
'We're going to get a divorce! This little trip up here was her idea. She wanted us to get together again, alone… and away from the kids…'
'… A reconciliation?'
'Yeah, but there's not much possibility of that… really!'
'That sounds like a line to me, Frank!' Charlotte said, getting up from the bench and draining her coffee cup.
'Well… if I read things right,' Frank grated, 'you and your husband have got a pretty good thing going here with this hunting lodge!' He, too, stood to his feet and came around the table to face her. 'I heard him making it with Nancy Barber… and I'm just guessing, but I suppose Gene Barber was laying you at the same time!'
'You guessed wrong, Frank.' She said it without rancor, as she played him like a trout.
'Hell, Charlotte, I know why the Goodwins wanted to leave! They didn't want to put up with all the wife swapping that's been going on! So, your husband promised them a refund and flew them out!'
'We call it swinging!' Charlotte said it softly.
'… And, you're wrong about Gene Barber! Jim and I both made it with Nancy!'
Frank was thoughtful for a moment. 'That's different! I suppose you've got your eye on my wife, Cheryl, then…?'
'That depends…'
'On what?'
'On you, mostly,' she smiled.
'How's that?'
'Well… Jim likes Cheryl, and he'd like nothing better than to take her to bed… and…'
Frank interrupted her. 'And you? I'd guess you're interested in her, too!'
'Sure! I swing both ways! You guessed that didn't you?' Charlotte's eyes were bright, as she told him levelly, '… but, I was trying to tell you… If you're making a play for me you'll have to let Jim make it with Cheryl, too! That's the catch!'
His laugh was bitter. 'Damn! That's a good one! You're both welcome to her, if you think you can thaw her out!'
'Is she frigid?'
'About like that snow out there!' he answered. 'Ever since our second child was born a little more than three years ago, she's been like an iceberg! Hell! I might as well be living in a monastery!'
'Is it really that bad, Frank?' Charlotte asked, moving in close to him, her hips thrusting out slightly, her voice going soft along with her eyes, as she lifted her moist sensuous lips for his kiss. '… Or, is that part of the line?'
'No line! No bullshit!' he grunted. 'Just the whole truth… and nothing but the truth!'
'So help me…' she chorused with him, the last word, 'God!' smothered in her mouth, as his lips came down on hers, his arms going around her to crush her hard and tight against his still trim athletic body.
He felt her soft womanliness warm against him, and while his hand slid exploringly up under her sweater, he felt her loins grind in against the warm hardened bulge of his penis coming to full, pulsing erection inside his pants. He exulted to himself: Damn it! I knew it!
Deep into her mouth his tongue probed lashingly, as she returned his open-mouthed kiss, and her arms snaked around him, her hands rubbing the hardness of his back muscles through his shirt. Charlotte was glad that Frank Paynter had decided to ride back to the lodge, while the others continued their hunting foray with the guide, Jonothan Longwalk. She knew that Jonothan wouldn't have been fooled by Frank's story about the big roan's going lame, and she wondered how her guest had extricated himself.
Leaning back away from Paynter after a few moments of sensual communion, Charlotte looked up at him and gave her hips an extra little gyration against him, feeling the heat of his loins through their clothing and knowing by the involuntary lurching of his cock that he was now fully aroused.
'Tell me something, Frank. How did you get away from your wife and Jonothan?'
'Oh, I just said I wasn't feeling very well… had a fever coming on,' he laughed.
'You've got a fever all right… but it isn't in your head!'
'Yeah, I know… It's in the head of my cock!'
'… And, you want to put out the fire?'
'That's the idea! That's what I came back for… while there's no one around.'
'Then, why don't you quit beating around the bush… and ask me?' Her gray-green eyes bored challengingly into his.
Frank, who thought he was being bold and forthright, was momentarily taken aback by her bluntness. 'All r- right…' he faltered, 'Will you…?'
'Will I what?' she urged.
'Will you go to bed with me… a-and make love…?'
Stepping away from him, then, exasperated, Charlotte stood with hands on hips, head cocked to the side. She