Free Avalanche of Daisies by Beryl Kingston

up, dislodging straws with every movement, and he threw his tunic inside the cave andthey tumbled into it together, mouth to mouth, rolling over and over in an ecstasy of sensation. He was unbuttoning her blouse, kissing her throat, her breasts, her nipples – should he be doing this? probably not, but oh, how she wanted him to – his lips hot and searching as she held his head between her hands. ‘Steve, Steve, oh my dear darling Steve.’ And then everything happened too quickly to weigh up the consequences or even to give them a thought. He was inside her, and they were moving together, fitting together, made for each other, sensation growing and growing, higher and higher, until it exploded into such a crescendo of pleasure that she caught her breath. And at that he made an odd groaning noise and after a little while he stopped moving too.
    She lay where she was with her eyes still closed. It was amazingly peaceful. The sun was warm on her head and her bare arms and she could hear a dog barking a long way away and a mouse rustling in the straw next to her ear. And doubt rustled into her mind. We shouldn’t have done that, she thought. Now that she was reasonable again, she knew it quite well. I should have stopped him, said no, before we … She remembered the warnings. Nice girls don’t go all the way. Nice girls keep themselves pure until they’re married. She wasn’t even sure whether nice girls were supposed to enjoy it.
    His voice came to her blurred and from a distance. ‘Are you all right?’
    She opened her eyes and looked at him for a long thoughtful second. His face looked so happy and so satisfied, although there was a shadow of anxiety in those brown eyes. My darling Steve! Whatever her worries she couldn’t say anything about them. Not to him and certainly not now. ‘I’m wonderful,’ she said, trying to speak lightly. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
    He leant over her, supported on one elbow. ‘No reason,’ he said, gently picking straw from her hair. ‘I just wondered.’
    â€˜You’re sayin’ we shouldn’t have done it. Is that it?’
    â€˜No,’ he told her seriously. ‘That’s not it. I just didn’t want you to be upset. I wouldn’t upset you for worlds. You’re too precious to me.’
    It was necessary to reassure him. To reassure them both. ‘Look,’ she said, arguing against the warnings, ‘I know they say you shouldn’t till you got a weddin’ ring on your finger but I think thass a load of ol’ squit. If thass all right when you’re married, thass all right when you’re in love, ain’t it? What’s the difference? Thass love what matters.’
    â€˜Oh,’ he said, kissing her fingers, ‘I do love you, Spitfire. So much. More than ever now.’
    It was the time for declarations. She couldn’t doubt her feelings any more. Not after all this. ‘An’ I love you,’ she said, knowing it was true and that it would always be true. ‘Very, very, very much.’
    â€˜Oh my dear, lovely girl!’ And he pulled her towards him to kiss her again.
    The movement made her aware that she’d lost her clogs and that the straw was scratching her feet. Then she realised that she was lying on the pocket of his tunic and that it was full of small, bulky objects. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, shifting her body to a more comfortable position. ‘What you got in your pockets?’
    â€˜Fags,’ he remembered and that made him yearn for a smoke. ‘Would you like one?’
    â€˜They’ll be squashed,’ she laughed.
    They were, but he picked out the two least battered, lit them both and handed the best one to her. And they tasted all right. They lay side by side on the straw and smoked companionably, like film stars. But the mouse and the doubt were still rustling.
    â€˜I s’pose other people