"The Tutor_s Suitors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lane Sheila)

Chapter 8

The next, morning Paula felt as though the world were a bright and shining place. The feeling lasted almost an hour before it began to fade before the onslaught of dismal reality.

Her sense of well-being was based on what had happened between herself and Muster and by her belief that he had told Susie all about their relationship. To Paula that meant that he was preparing his wife for the news that he intended to leave her and marry Paula.

The first cloud to appear on her horizon was a nagging doubt that she was worthy of marrying a man like Ephraim Muster. After all, a minister of the gospel was the servant of the church and society and his wife should be above reproach. As Muster himself had pointed out, Paula was a far different girl than the one he had fallen in love with, but he didn't know the whole story. A woman who had allowed herself to be used sexually the way she had was hardly fit to marry a devout, dedicated man.

The second black cloud in her rosy sky was her confusion over Muster's confession to Susie. Exactly what had he told her? And had he really laid the foundation for leaving her? Paula hadn't dared question him too closely, and in the heat of passion hadn't wanted to, but now she began to wonder.

Her personal problems had to be put aside for the moment while she got the day started for the rest of the camp. That was depressing in itself.

The minute she stepped into the dining hall, she had to face a crisis. Jay Divan was face to face with Mrs. Clark, shoving a bowl of mud-colored, lumpy, warmed-over oatmeal at her.

"This slop isn't fit to eat!" Paula heard him say. "You make some fresh or we'll throw you into the garbage can along with this!"

"Jay Divan, don't you dare talk to Mrs. Clark that way!" Paula said, pushing her way through the group of young people.

Jay turned toward her, a sneer on his lips and a look in his eyes that warned her not to cross him if she didn't want the truth about their relationship blurted out. But at the moment she didn't care. This had nothing to do with what they had or hadn't done in bed. This was a mater of camp discipline, and if she didn't maintain her authority now, she wouldn't be able to control the teen-agers at all.

"Don't butt in, Teach. I'm gonna learn this greedy old broad not to steal from the camp mess fund. She's got no right to pocket the bread the church divided up for food and serve this bilge instead."

"He's right, Miss Swan," Barb said. "I've seen the budget that was allowed for food and we could eat lots better than this."

Paula looked at Mrs. Clark, not knowing quite how to handle the touchy situation.

"I told you before, Miss Swan, I'm doing the best I can with what I got. I'm an honest, hard-working, God-fearing woman, and I resent this boy's accusations. For two cents rd walk out of here and never come back."

"I ought to make you eat this stuff," Jay said, drawing back his hand as though to throw the bowl of sticky cereal in the woman's face.

"Don't you dare do that!" Paula yelled, grabbing his arm with both hands. "Put that bowl down and behave yourself!"

"Let go of me, bitch!" Jay snarled and tried to jerk free of her.

Anger at his words and at what he was trying to do reinforced Paula's rage at the way she had let this arrogant youth treat her in the past. That rage lent her the strength to twist Jay's arm in just the right way as he let go with the bowl of mush and most of it landed on his own face.

A roar of laughter went up from the youngsters crowding around that almost drowned out Jay's bellow of anger.

"Why, you dirty bitch, I ought to…" He drew back his fist and lunged at Paula, oatmeal dripping off his chin. Somehow she found the courage to stand firm in the face of his attack, and she knew then that she would never be afraid of him again. Let him hit her in front of everyone, let him show himself for the bully and coward he was.

But the blow she was prepared to take never landed. Mike Randall, who was more than Jay's match physically, grabbed the raised hand and spun him around.

"I knew you were a louse, Divan, but I didn't think you'd hit a lady."

"Lady?" Jay sneered. "That's a laugh!"

"Leave Miss Swan alone, you bum!" Mike said, and several of the older boys, including Steve Tarbel, moved closer to back him up.

"Yeah, Jay, we've had about enough of your throwing your weight around," Steve said. "There's no need to get mean just because you can't have your own way."

"Okay, okay! You guys don't have to gang up on me, I know when I'm outnumbered," Jay said with a scowl and turned away with a whispered, "I'll get you later!" to Paula.

As he passed Barb, he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. "Come with me, chick. I got something to tell you."

The girl went along meekly, and Paula frowned, wondering if she should interfere. Then she noticed Mike was also watching them and walked toward him.

"Thank you for coming to my assistance, Mike," she said, admiring the way he filled out his T-shirt and shorts.

"That's okay, Miss Swan," the boy said, "I'd do almost anything for you."

"Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that," she said and started to pass between him and one of the tables. He stepped forward at the same moment and her thigh and breast brushed against him.

The boy looked at her and blushed, the intense longing he felt showing plainly in his eyes. Little thrills of pleasure ran through Paula as she realized he wanted her, and even the thought of Ephraim Muster and what they meant to each other couldn't stop the tingling in her thighs or the sudden dampening of the lush meadow between them.

Impulsively she let her finger trail lightly down Mike's arm as she left, and she didn't know whether the touch was a caress or a promise as she hurried after Mrs. Clark.

Catching up with the woman in the kitchen, Paula first apologized for Jay's behavior, then brought up the subject of food.

The woman looked at her sullenly. "You're talking to the wrong person when you talk to me."

"You are in charge of meal planning and purchasing groceries, aren't you?"

"Supposed to be, but I'm not. I told you before he's taking care of that."

"He? Dr. Muster?"

"Sure, Dr. Muster! He's the boss, ain't he?"

"Yes, but… " Paula was aware of a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "He buys all the food? He's in complete charge of the money the church set aside to feed the campers?"

"Yes. He orders the groceries and pays cash for them back in town," Mrs. Clark said. "I thought it was kind of funny when he told me about it, but some churches make different arrangements than others."

"Yes, Tm sure the elders must have set it up that way for good reasons," Paula said hastily, but she wasn't at all sure of anything of the kind. In fact, she happened to know it hadn't been done that way in previous years.

"Well, I don't like it and I'm tired of taking a lot of guff from those rotten kids when it ain't my fault," the woman said. "If things don't change pretty soon, I'm walking out."

"I'll talk to Dr. Muster and see if we. can't get it straightened out," Paula promised.

"You do that, Missy," Mrs. Clark said, "and there's one more thing – that nosey ranger fella. You'd better get him off my back, too. He's outside right now making a nuisance of himself about the cook stove flue. I don't know what he expects to find, but it don't seem to me it's any of his business whether the flue smokes or not."

So Rod Taylor was back, and after she had made it very clear to him the last time that they didn't need his advice or help. "I'll just go talk to him right now," Paula said, almost grateful that there was someone at whom she could get mad and work off some of her frustrations.

Eyes flashing, she strode out of the dining hall and around the building looking for Rod Taylor. She had gone all the way around it without finding him and was beginning to think Mrs. Clark was imagining things when she heard his voice.

"Hey, Miss Swan, you looking for me?"

Paula stopped in her tracks and looked upward to see him balanced on the edge of the roof near the pipe that served as outlet from the kitchen stove.

"Yes, I'm looking for you," she said, glaring up at him with her hands on her hips. "Just what do you think you're doing poking around up there?"

"Trying to keep you folks from burning down the whole forest," he said.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she demanded, unreasonable anger sweeping through her as high glance came to rest on the fullness of her jutting breasts.

He held up a piece of wire screening that was used to cover the flue. It was burned through in one place and looked as though it might crumble at the lightest touch. "How many sparks and burning embers do you think this would keep from flying out into the brush?" he asked quietly.

"I… I don't know. I guess we'll have to have it fixed." Why was it that he always put her on the defensive, in the wrong? She hated him for it, but at the same time she couldn't help admiring his physique and noticing how neatly his uniform pants fit across his flat belly and hugged his muscular thighs, not to mention the very sizeable bulge that lay between them.

He's hung like an ape, she thought, and she felt a wave of desire flash along her nerves like heat lightning across a summer sky. He annoys and exasperates me beyond words, but what an experience it would be to have him fuck me!

"Yes, you'll have to have it fixed," he said, taking a pad and ballpoint pen from a pocket. "I've got to issue a citation that will keep you from using the stove until it's been replaced."

"Oh for crying out loud!" Paula said disgustedly. "Do you have to be such a go-by-the-rulebook jerk? Can't you bend a little so the kids can at least have hot meals?"

Rod swung down off the roof by placing a foot on the angle of a drain pipe and dropping to a spot directly in front of her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Listen, you little idiot, this forest is tinder dry and one or two sparks could easily ignite it. And if it does, you and the rest of your people would be trapped in a culde-sac without access to the road. Even helicopters wouldn't be able to get to you because of the down drafts from the fire. You'd all be incinerated before you knew what hit you."

"Oh," she said, anger evaporating in the face of the seriousness of the situation. "I guess I'd better go get Joe Boggs and have him fix it right now."

"Yes, I guess you'd better," he said, but his grip on her shoulders tightened instead of loosening, and she knew he felt the sexual electricity arc between them just as she did.

Taking a deep breath, he started to let her go, then without warning yanked her hard against him. Every line of her body was molded to every line of his, her breasts squashed against his chest, her thighs blending into the strength of his. Belly to belly with him, she trembled at the feel of his massive sex pressing into her soft mound through the several layers of cloth separating them.

"Why do you have to be so damn beautiful… so damn desirable?" he husked, "It would be so easy to close this stupid operation down if it weren't for you."

That made her mad again, and she struggled to break his hold. "Let me go! Let me go!"

"I'll let you go when I'm ready to," he said, just before his lips took possession of hers in a deep kiss that sent her senses reeling. His tongue dipped into her mouth, finding hers and stroking moistly against it. Paula's brain spun giddily, and she felt as though she were caught in a whirlpool.

Pressed against his hard chest, her nipples firmed and started to throb; sending out messages of sensual delight. But the most searing flashes of blind lust were caused by the pressure of the magnificent shaft she could feel trying to push through his pants and her dress to enter the hidden grotto of her womanhood.

"Please, we mustn't," she choked, trying to get herself back under control. She should tell him about Muster, that there was no room for another man in her life, but oh, God, how she wanted him!

Rod had maneuvered her into a corner formed by the L-shape of the building and was rolling his lower body against hers right there in plain sight of anyone who happened along. She tore her lips from his, breathing hard.

"Rod, please… someone will see us… remember the kids."

"I want you," he said huskily, his hand coming up to rub the pebbly nipples and caress the sensitive mounds. "I want you right now."

He shoved tighter against her, and Paula spread her thighs as widely as she could, greedy for the feel of his hardness pressing into her soft, hairy pussy. "Please… please… " she gasped, but she wasn't sure what she was asking him td do. She had heard the term "dry fuck" and knew that was what he was doing to her and while her body cried out for it to go on, her mind demanded that it stop.

"People will see us… people…" Her mouth was filled again with his rapacious tongue, and the incessant demand of his masculinity threatened to tear right through the intervening cloth and skewer her on the spot.

She had to stop him before the wet torment between her thighs made her forget everything except the raging need for his cock in her cunt. She had to end this before she went completely out of her mind and stripped off her clothes in broad daylight in the middle of the camp and let him take her no matter who was watching.

"Stop it!" Her voice was shrill with desperation as she made a final effort to avoid the public copulation her body was demanding. "I'm in love with someone else! I'm engaged to be married!"

"Engaged? Married?" Rod let go of her so suddenly that she almost fell. His fingers that had been fondling her tits so excitingly fell away and the glorious phallus seemed to shrink and fade as he stood glaring at her furiously. "Why, you Goddamn little prick-teaser! If that's the way it was, why did you let me go so far? Why did you lead me on the other day in the water? Why did you -"

"You've answered your own question!" she said, lashing back at him in her disappointment and frustration. "I'm a prick-teaser! I take great delight in causing cunt-hungry cock-wallopers to get hard-ons and then stand back and laugh at them!"

Rod's eyes nearly popped out at the vulgar language. "My God, Paula you sound like -"

"Like the slut I am!" she said, wanting to hurt him as badly as she'd been hurt. "Buster, you don't know the half of it! I've teased so many men it would make your uptight head spin! You're just like all the rest – you want cunt and when you don't get it, you cry like a baby snatched away from his mother's tit!"

"Paula, that isn't true," Rod said. "I… I think I love you. What's this all about? Why are you so bitter? Has somebody -"

"Oh, leave me alone! Just leave me alone!" Paula hissed before she turned and ran to hide the fact that she was dissolving in tears.

When she reached her cabin, she threw herself on the cot sobbing. She knew she had used those crude words as a weapon, not so much against Rod Taylor as against her own feelings. She was afraid of the emotions he stirred in her, the almost uncontrollable passion that swept through her at his touch. She hated him for his bossiness and his constant criticism of and interference with the running of Mountain Grove, but she found him irresistible as a man. If the situation had been different, if they had met under happier, friendlier circumstances, things might have worked out between them, they might even have…

She caught herself up short at the direction her thoughts were taking. She cared nothing about Rod Taylor; the less she had to do with him the better. He infuriated her even when he was right, which seemed to be most of the time, and she didn't care what he thought of her. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon. Besides, she was in love with Muster.

For some reason, that sent her into fresh torrents of tears. What was the matter with her? Couldn't she be satisfied with one man? Was she going to go on for the rest of her life wanting every male in sight? She had thought that once she'd been with a man, the terrible longings and sexual fantasies would cease, but they seemed to be stronger than ever. She had been so tempted by Rod Taylor's thrilling masculinity that she had almost let him take her in a public place. Of course, he had been just as carried away as she was, even more so to have grabbed her that way and tried such a thing. What was the excuse he had made – that she was so beautiful and desirable? Yes, that was it, and then later he had made that stupid remark about thinking he was in love with her. Well, she certainly didn't believe that! That was just to make him look better in his own eyes. No man who loved a woman would assault her so lasciviously with other people so close by. Not that there had been, she admitted, but there could have been. And given two more minutes' exposure to that erotic flame that had leaped between them, he would probably have pulled her dress up, her panties down and impaled her on that giant pole of his. She shivered in remembrance of the extravagant proportions of his manhood and her tears almost stopped as she let her imagination run wild on the theme of what it would be like to lie naked and spread-eagled under Rod's strong muscular body, breathing in his clean, outdoorsy scent while he fucked her into a state of sweet oblivion.

"I've got to stop this!" she said out loud and shook her head to clear it of the sexy daydream. "I love Ephraim Muster and he loves me. We're going to be married some day. I've got to stop thinking about other men… I've particularly got to stop thinking about Rod Taylor."

She got up and washed her tear-stained face, intending to go back to her duties, but when she saw how red-rimmed and puffy her eyes were from crying, she decided to wait awhile before leaving the privacy of her cabin. She didn't feel like answering the questions such telltale signs would provoke. No one would miss her until lunchtime anyway. Soaking two cotton pads in cold water, she stretched out on the cot again with one on each eyelid and waited for them to do their job.

Paula tried to keep her mind a blank, holding all thought at bay and seeking only to rest. She succeeded so well that she slipped into a deep sleep without even realizing it.

Hours later she thought she dreamed that a man opened her door and came in. He loomed over her briefly, whispered something she couldn't make sense out of, then moved her legs so he could kneel between them. Shadowy hands stroked up the smooth skin of her calves, over her rounded kneecaps and under the edge of her skirt. Paula moaned as the fingers traveled higher and higher up the satiny insides of her thighs.

She wondered what the dream intruder was up to, why he was lifting her skirt and folding it back out of the way. Did he just want to look at her legs or did he get a charge out of seeing how the curls of golden hair escaped from under the edges of her panties?

He crouched lower between her thighs and pressed his lips against one bare thigh, then the other. She could feel the tongue like a warm little eel slithering steadily upward. It was an odd but pleasant sensation, and Paula wasn't at all adverse to having the dream continue.

The intruder's head was under her skirt now, the avid tongue slipping into the crease that divided her thigh from her belly. That little gully was overgrown with tendrils of blond hair, but the owner of tire tongue didn't seem to mind, for it licked hotly up the gully and over the hairy mound itself, pressing liquid kisses into the perfumed softness.

Paula's eyes opened as she felt the hot wetness penetrate the thin barrier of her panty crotch.

"Hey, this is no dream!" she said, sitting halfway up and staring at the head that was half-hidden by her short blue skirt. "Who are you? What do you think you're doing?"