“Good girl,” I said. “Now swallow.”
She did. “Mmm, thank you, Daddy.”
“Very nice,” Carter said, and I almost jumped in surprise. He and Christy were finished, and he’d joined her in the pool. I hadn’t even noticed. And I didn’t know how long they’d been watching. Or listening.
“What?” I said, slightly diffident.
“The ‘Daddy’ thing,” Carter explained. “It’s pretty common in the scene.” It was a half-truth that covered a larger one, that Kim meant it literally more than figuratively.
“Not with me,” Christy said under her breath.
“I said common,” Carter chuckled, “not ubiquitous.”
“For the record,” she said to me, “he’s as bad as you are. With words, I mean.”
“Probably. It’s part of the reason we get along so well.”
Carter nodded and then glanced at his watch. “Ready to start dinner? You can be my sous.”
“Does sous mean anything besides ‘kitchen slave’?”
“Not that I know of,” he laughed.
“Pauvre chou,” Christy said.
“Whatever that means,” I grumbled.
“Thank you, sir,” Kim said quietly. “For dinner. And… um… everything else.”
“Come on, it won’t take long,” Carter told me. “I’ll go easy on you.”
“You know,” I mused, “sometimes I don’t like you very much.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied mildly.
“Oh, Paul,” Christy laughed, bright and musical, “he’s exactly like you.”
“I know. And that should probably worry me.”
* * *
Carter made tuna and rotini in a garlic, lemon, and caper sauce. It wasn’t fancy, but it tasted good, and Christy ate two helpings. Then she used a piece of French bread to mop up the sauce and butter from the sautéed carrots.
“That was delicious,” I told Carter. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. You had good tuna.”
“Wren’s doing, I’m sure. I buy Charlie the Tuna.”
“Starkist. It isn’t bad. You have to get chunk tuna, though, canned in water, not oil.”
Christy wrinkled her nose at the thought of oil in her tuna.
“Exactly,” I agreed.
Carter heard the sarcasm and rolled his eyes. “At least you had fresh carrots.”
“We always have fresh carrots,” I laughed. “Bunny here would die without ’em.”
Christy beamed and nodded happily.
Carter refilled our wine, and we chatted for a while as the western horizon coaxed the sun into its embrace. The persistent summer haze turned to edible colors, from bananas to oranges to the red of ripe tomatoes. I needed an entire farmer’s market to describe them all. Christy was also thinking of food, although in more prosaic terms.
“What did you make for dessert?” she asked.
“A surprise,” Carter said slyly, “but only for Paul and me.”
“Unh! No fair.” She narrowed her eyes. Then she looked at me.
I held up my hands in unfeigned ignorance.
“Sweet, juicy nectarines,” Carter said, “with whipped cream.”
Christy frowned, and I mirrored her.
“Okay,” I said slowly, “we have whipped cream. I saw it behind the butter. But I know for a fact that we don’t have nectarines. I’m not even sure what they are.”
“Peaches without the fuzz,” Carter said. He almost managed not to smirk. Almost.
Christy figured it out before I did, but not by much. Her eyes widened, and she glanced at Kim, who smiled in excitement.
“I’ll get the whipped cream,” Carter said to me. “Will you be my sous and prep the nectarines?”
“Okay, this time I don’t mind. Do you have a preference? Yours or mine?”
“Yours, of course. And you can eat mine.” He laughed and disappeared into the clubhouse.
Kim caught my eye, and her grin was the perfect combination of shy and come-on. Christy actually bounced, although she winced and immediately sat still.
Kim’s expression immediately turned sympathetic. “Sometimes it takes me a whole day to recover. The girls at work wonder why I spend so much time at the copier.”
“It’s better than before,” Christy said. “Only, I get excited and forget.”
“You’ll be fine on your back.”
Christy’s eyes flashed. “Mmm, I hope so.”
“That’s my cue,” I said. “Ladies…?” I lifted Christy onto the adjacent table and set her down gently.
“Thank you, Mr. Chef,” she murmured. “My nectarine is very happy.”
I chuckled and kissed her before I moved to Kim.
Carter returned with the tub of Cool Whip. “Right. Are we ready?”
“Yours is,” I said. “I still need to arrange mine.”
He nodded and handed me a large spoon on the way by. He stopped in front of Christy and helped her lie back. Then he pulled up a chair, spread her legs, and spooned a dollop of whipped cream onto her smooth mons.
“Keep it on the outside,” he cautioned. Then he handed me the tub. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I lied, “of course.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kim said. “I promise I’ll return the favor.” She smiled, and her cheeks turned rosy. Then she leaned close and touched hers to mine. “Will you come see us in Charlotte? I’d like that, sir. Very much. Carter too, but… he isn’t the reason I’m asking.”
My eyebrows flew up. “I’d… I’d like that.”
She sat back, and her eyes sparkled as she looked into mine. For a moment I thought she might have some romantic interest. I searched her expression and breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t see it.
“Was it something I said?” she wondered.
My cheeks heated with surprise and chagrin. “No, I just…” I thought about it and admitted, “No, sometimes I get carried away.”
She frowned uncertainly.
“I think I’m God’s gift to women.”
“Oh, that.” She grinned, worldly and affectionate at the same time. “Don’t all men?”
“Probably.”
“Are you upset? That I don’t… um… like you that way?”
“Not at all. I’m relieved.”
“Oh, good. Me too. Sir.” She ducked her head and leaned in for a kiss. “Would you like to eat my cookie?” She frowned. “Or my nectarine? Or… what would you like me to call it? Sir?”
“How about ‘pussy’?”
“Mmm, I like that.”
“Me too. But I’m going to start with your melons.”
She lay back, and her breasts flattened into low mounds that bulged at the side. Her eyes shone with amusement as I spread whipped cream onto her nipples.
I spent a couple of minutes licking and sucking until they were clean. Then I kissed my way to her pussy. I didn’t bother with a chair and grabbed a seat cushion instead. I sank to my knees and surveyed her from close-up.
The whipped cream was just a gimmick, an excuse, and I didn’t need it. Instead, I pushed her knees toward her chest and spread her legs. Her thin outer labia merged seamlessly with her body, and her fleshy inner lips parted. They were already damp with moisture, but I ignored them and planted light kisses on the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
Her body thrummed with anticipation as I slowly moved toward her pussy. I teased her and let the tension build until she whined softly. Then I probed her with two fingers. I lubricated them with her juices and slowly buried them up to the third knuckle. She moaned softly, and her buttocks tightened as she thrust her hips toward me.
I began finger-fucking her and took the opportunity to glance at Carter and Christy. His face was buried in her pussy, and he shook it side to side as he vibrated her clit. She tugged a nipple with one hand and held on to the table with the other. Then she tensed and held her breath through a mini-orgasm. Carter didn’t even slow down. He began licking her slit, and she moaned into the gathering twilight.