asked, the flash in her eyes brighter than the golden rays of sunlight.
She yielded easily to my touch quickly after that.
I examined a frond that just so happened to be covering my suddenly urgent erection and nodded sombrely.
“I’ve been riding her hard,” I said.
“She’s clearly responded,” Shay replied, and I nearly choked.
“Sir,” Benson said, coming closer. “Have you noticed that the ghost orchid has begun to bloom?”
His eyes guided me toward a delicate flower near my feet.
“Ah, yes,” I said, lifting the pot which was perfectly sized to hide an inconvenient piece of, em, wood. “Very beautiful.”
“Sir, I heard noise in the foyer earlier,” Benson said discreetly, lingering with his silver serving cart in the doorway of the greenhouse. “Anything to be concerned about?”
I shook my head, sweaty palms slipping around the pot.
“A sparrow got inside,” I said.
Benson pursed his lips.
“You and Ms Evans were trying to get the poor creature out, I suppose?”
“Precisely, Benson,” I whispered, winking at my beloved old butler. “Precisely.”
Benson bowed his head and said before leaving, “I supposed as much, sir.”
I allowed myself to wait till the creak of the cart’s wheels faded down the hallway and then moved, with my pot, toward Kane and Shay. There was only so long I could stay away before they’d raise eyebrows. Not that my new plant friend held strategically in front of me didn’t result in much the same.
Neither Kane nor Shay said anything as I took my seat, pot between my legs. Perhaps they’d seen me high enough times to chalk it up to that. I grabbed a couple finger sandwiches to sell that narrative.
“So how’d you remove all those filthy words from her vocabulary?” Kane asked, sipping his tea. “I didn’t hear a single one this afternoon. Did you wash her mouth with soap?”
Shay laughed. I laughed as well, mostly to distract from the uncontrollable squirming of my hips.
Just days before I had been in the big antique clawfoot bathtub in the centre of my bedroom, enjoying the stars above the glass dome, enjoying the pillows of lavender-scented bath bubbles, enjoying Delaney’s mouth on my cock beneath the surface.
“We haven’t had to resort to such draconian measures,” I said, grinning.
I was fairly sure the wood floors around the tub still hadn’t dried completely even all these days later. Turns out it’s hard to fuck without considerable sloshing.
Shay plopped a grape into his mouth and then said as he chewed, “Well, at the very least, you must have been harder on her than before?”
Fog-filled mornings. Delaney holding a cup of steaming black coffee. The bottom swell of her ass above long, bare legs just visible beneath the hem of my collared shirt. Her sleepy grin, her fingers reaching back to card through my hair, her back collapsing against my chest when I came up behind her, rock-hard cock pressed eagerly against her.
“Yeah,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound as much of a croak to Shay and Kane as it did to me. “I have been harder on her.”
Kane nodded, picking through a tray of petit cookies.
“She seemed so set in her ways before,” he said. “So stubborn. So inflexible.”
I shook my head, remembering how easily Delaney’s legs, propped up on my shoulders, went behind her head on the kitchen island. Her toes stretched back so far they caught the light from the open fridge across the room. We’d come down for a midnight snack and ended up deciding on something sweeter than ice cream.
“Ms Evans has proven to be quite flexible, actually,” I said, reminding myself to loosen my grip on the teacup before it shattered.
“It’s definitely a start, Ronan,” Shay said, standing to stretch his long legs. He wasn’t great at sitting still for long. I adjusted the placement of my pot as he paced easily back and forth and turned his attention back to me. “But do you think she has what it takes to stay afloat in this dog-eat-dog world of ours? It tends to drag the weak under.”
“Hmm,” I said, pretending that I was considering Shay’s comment.
In actuality I knew just how well Delaney fared in deep waters. My pool had seen more than its fair share of skinny dipping recently. I bit back a sigh remembering the illuminated surface wavering over her naked body, making it seem like it was a mirage in a distant desert. It was certainly perfect enough to be the thing of imagination alone: her full tits, her sumptuous hips, her long legs that fluttered in the