Instinct told her that Hank wasn't going to awaken. In fact, she was going to have trouble getting his huge naked bulk under the covers. She lay on her back, relaxed, catching her breath, her ripely firm young breasts heaving up and down. The base of her neck was still pressed painfully against the headboard, wedged there by Hank's brutal thrusts, and she lay much in the same pose as Nichole had a few miles away in Pebble Beach a little earlier in the evening. Kim lay with her magnificently fleshed breasts in front of her face, her pert chin forced into her chest. Idly, she passed her hands over them, feeling their liquid weight and warmness. They were bigger, fuller, better formed than Nichole's. Kim's finger tips skimmed lightly over them, testing them tenderly for sore spots and bruises. Her lacquered fingernails gently touched her nipples; they sprang to life as she watched them, pale pink and hardening, tensing, pointing provocatively.
In a sudden odd mood, she looked down at her nakedly sleeping husband, seeing him framed between her breasts that were almost – not quite – too large for her frame… breasts that she felt she should be proud of, yet wasn't! Almost unaware of what she was doing, the voluptuous young wife dug the fingernail in the softly yielding flesh of her nipple. Than, she took the buffeted nipple between her thumb and forefinger and pinched it with her fingernails, deliberately hurting herself and sending an unexpectedly erotic tremor of excitement through her naked body.
She stopped guiltily, her hand covering her mouth against a little cry of amazement. Kim had just stumbled on a self-discovery, and it was far from pleasant. She thought: Actually, in a funny way, a wrong way, a dirty way, I really enjoyed being handled so roughly. If only I hadn't been so afraid…
She shook her head, refusing to finish the thought. Quickly, then, she got up and hurried to the closet, where she got a robe, then she fled to the bathroom while Hank snored.
CHAPTER THREE
Carmel has one of the loveliest beaches in the world. Its sand manages to stay a virgin white and the beach front runs for two curving miles from the Pebble Beach golf course to what residents call 'The Frank Lloyd Wright House' which is an imposing home built on the rocks, right above the ocean, by that famous architect.
The beach, in all its vastness, seems to absorb people as a sponge does water. It would take a large assembly to seem crowded. It looks crowded really only twice a year: on the Fourth of July, and during the Great Sandcastle Building Contest. On other days, people sunbathe, children play, surfers surf, brave ones swim, people ride horseback, and dogs race – tongue lolling, barking, after the seagulls. An occasional Sea Lion swims along just beyond the surf, old men fish, joggers jog and others simply stroll. All this happens and the beach doesn't seem crowded. Each person has a feeling of privacy.
People use the beach from morning until night when flickering orange bonfires warm groups of picnickers. At sundown, people are invariably seen walking or parked along Scenic Drive or simply sitting on benches along the road or seen standing, alone and quiet. Sunset in Carmel is a quiet time and people talk in hushed voices and lovers stroll hand in hand. Sunsets in Carmel are always dramatic and always different and always something seen on a postcard and cannot believe because they're too pretty, too colorful and too dramatic.
It certainly isn't thought unusual to see people with binoculars on the beach or sitting in parked cars along Scenic Drive. There are all sorts of wildlife to observe: gulls, terns, pelicans, seals, sea lions, sea otters, and, in season, the California Gray Whale in migratory herds. At times, the Killer Whales are seen, their dorsal fins cleaving the water of the bay in search of prey.
There was nothing unusual in the Mercedes-Benz that parked along Scenic day after day. Nor was there anything odd in the occupants – a man and a woman – watching the beach through powerful binoculars. They were attractive and well dressed and looked as if they belonged to the Carmel scene. The girl was young and extremely attractive with a dress that was just a little too colorful and low cut. Her cleavage showed, disappearing down into a soft shimmering shadow of warm flesh. Her black hair was long and swept across her forehead, and her smile was a dazzling white. Her nose was provocatively tilted on the end. The man, the driver, was older and his face was thin and spartan, aristocratic, and his black hair was sprinkled and streaked with gray. He wore gray. He was dressed in gray slacks, gray shirt, and gray cashmere sweater.
They were watching a solitary stroller who walked by herself down by the water's edge. They had been watching her for days. She walked the beach twice a day: in the early morning and at sunset. She walked to and from the beach to her house, a cottage, that was three short, tree-lined blocks to the ocean.
She drove into town once a day, going to the post office to mail letters and pick mail up. She shopped in the mouth of the Carmel Valley at the Safeway and Long's discount drug store. She only shopped once a week. She stayed home every night, watching television then retiring early. Only once since they had been watching her, had she gone out in the evening, going to an early movie alone.
The occupants of the car were Web Hardman and Nichole Parker. The person they were watching was Kim. Web focused his binoculars on her as she walked the beach, and he slowly brought her voluptuous young figure into a shimmering detail. He inspected details of her sensual, finely shaped body with a scientist's detachment and passion for detail. She wore little makeup. Her nose was so perfect, so delicate, that he was sure it had been bobbed. Yet, as he inspected it through the glasses, he knew it wasn't. There was a purple bruise mark on her neck that was almost concealed by a silk scarf; the bruise interested him. Her attitude interested him. Generally, her face was preoccupied, serious, and, at times, little sad. She was very definitely alone. A glint and flash of light on the fingers of her left hand told him she was married.
Her body was a pleasure for him to watch as she walked along in the loose sand. She always wore tight slacks that allowed him to see and imagine her long, firmly shaped thighs and tapered legs, her sensually petulant buttocks that twitched and ground with every step. And her breasts – always under sweaters or heavy sweat shirts that were too big for her (undoubtedly her husband's) – shook free, bouncing with a sprightly rhythm when she sometimes ran to avoid the last flat surge of a wave. Her body was strong, and the wind blew her flame red hair wild and ruffled around her face, giving her regal queen-like features a certain Irish bawdiness in appearance.
Web slowly lowered the glasses and stared off, seeing Kim nothing more than a distant silhouette on the beach. He didn't want to show too much pleasure in Nichole's choice. It was a policy with him never to flatter her too much. Always let her be a little hungry. Yet, he was pleased with her choice. He was more than pleased! For the first time in a long while, he was sexually excited… He was aroused. Kim Stewart was a magnificent specimen and provided an interesting challenge. He looked at Nichole, smiling slightly. Since he had forced her to admit she would betray a friend, would betray them sexually, and then help him in the seduction, even Nichole had taken on a new sexual interest. It was mild, but an arousement nonetheless. He had become even more interested after he heard the name, Kim Stewart. He had her investigated by his bodyguard who was trained and very adept about such things. Be came back with a report on her. Married, living in a cottage in Carmel, her husband was an engineer and was away for six months in South America. Kim Stewart was alone, seldom went out other than for routines of living, and didn't see anyone. Her husband's parents, the Stewarts, lived in Pebble Beach. Apparently Kim had no communication or visits with them. A snapshot, taken by the bodyguard, showing Kim walking near the post office in tight white slacks, sneakers, and a loose red wool sweater, was enough to interest him more.
He watched her for days, his careful intelligence not missing a detail. Finally, he turned to Nichole. 'I think she'll do.'
Nichole broke into a dazzling smile of relief. She laughed and relaxed, leaning back, jutting out her young breasts provocatively and swinging them back and forth. Since he knew her for what she was, Nichole could afford a lewd grin, a look of utter depravity, to come over her face. She licked her lips, looking at Kim through the glasses once more. It was going to be fun to trick the trusting young wife, to lead her into depravity, to orgies, to wild moments when she would go a little insane and behave in a lewd and lascivious way. It would be wildly interesting and sexually exciting to see Kim come under the influence of Web, to see him break her to his will, to see her perform the way she did, to see her eager for a sexual perversion. If Kim could be led to act that way, it would make her feel better. Besides, it would please Web.
'I think she's definitely unhappy. Over what, I'm not so sure,' the gray dressed man said to Nichole. 'At first, I thought it was because her husband had left her. I thought she missed him.'
'That's possible. She hasn't been married very long.'
