InstructionbySeduction Read online

  “You know I do,” Leah said into the pillow.

  “What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

  Hale pumped harder. Leah lifted her head and yelled, “You know I do!”

  “So that means you want it harder? Faster?”

  Hale took ahold of Leah’s hips and pulled her hard back against him. She grunted and moaned. He slid one hand around and played with Leah’s pussy lips. Hale slid a finger, hard, against her hardened nub and she shuddered.

  “Oh my God,” Leah yelled out to the room.

  “Like that?”

  Leah couldn’t even answer. Hale rubbed furiously against her clit and pushed hard into her rear. Leah moaned and writhed beneath him, feeling as though every nerve ending was open and raw, overstimulated. It was almost too much.

  Leah trembled beneath Hale, feeling the boiling within her about to overflow. She was covered in her own cream and sweat, filled with Hale’s stiff, perfect shaft. A tear slid down her cheek as she was overcome with feeling.

  “Take me in,” Hale said gently. “You feel like warm strawberry jam, sweet and hot. I want to fuck you like this all night long.”

  The explosion within Leah was fueled by Hale’s words and this time she didn’t miss his big moment. Even while she screamed his name and absorbed the shockwaves of her own epic rush, she felt every pulse as his cock fed her ass. It seemed like they had melded together—that it wasn’t two separate events but one legendary blissful explosion that was shared by two parts of the same whole.

  Leah shuddered, still recovering while Hale pulled out of her. He lowered himself over her and kissed her shoulder blades.

  “Leah,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a sexual goddess.”

  Leah giggled.

  “Seriously, anyone who can come like that needs to be teaching others how to do it. Anything less is just selfish.”

  Leah laughed into the pillow. Hale continued kissing her back, then nuzzled her neck. He sucked on her earlobe and she giggled again.

  “I’ll be back.” He left her and headed for the bathroom.

  “No don’t go.” Leah rolled onto her side and looked up at him. The room had darkened enough by then that all she could see was his vague outline.

  “I’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

  Chapter Five

  And for the first time he did come back.

  When Hale returned from the bathroom Leah was disappointed to see he was wearing his pants. He sat down next to her and smiled.

  “Roll over onto your stomach.” Leah did, wondering what pleasure awaited her.

  The feel of Hale’s hands on her shoulders, massaging and soothing, was a welcome sensation. He rubbed out the day’s activities, both stressful and blissful, like he was squeezing honey out of her skin—slow and easy, thick and sweet. Leah moaned, trying to remember the last time she had a massage, even one that she’d had to pay for.

  Hale continued his firm caress of her shoulders, sides and down her back. Leah felt like she was going melt into the mattress at any moment. As her muscles relaxed and became more pliable in his hands, Hale leaned over her and began leaving small kisses here and there—one on her neck, one on her shoulder. His lips brushed her skin ever so softly at first she wasn’t even sure he was kissing her. The gentleness of it was enough to bring tears to her eyes. When had anyone ever shown her such appreciation? Affection? Attentiveness?

  “Why do you care about me?” Leah asked softly, almost afraid that speaking would bring out the tears that threatened to spill out but desperate for an answer.

  “Because you care about you, even if you don’t always realize it,” Hale said. “Because you are beautiful and perfect. Because you are absolutely you.”

  “Those aren’t reasons.”

  “Someday you’ll realize that those are the only reasons worth having.”

  * * * * *

  Leah awoke the next morning feeling fabulous. She stretched out, went for another run in the park, then spent an hour preening in front of the mirror, preparing to head into work for one of the biggest workdays of her life. Leah pulled the brush through her long red locks, contemplating the color. She tilted her head forward and checked her roots. The brown was coming out again.

  “Maybe it’s time for a change,” Leah said to her reflection. She’d been a redhead on purpose for so long she’d forgotten what she looked like with her natural color. Leah thought of Kelly’s offer for a girls’ night in and wondered if that wouldn’t be the perfect project for them to do together.

  “You are beautiful and perfect,” Leah whispered, staring at herself. She felt far less perfect than Hale seemed to see her. “You are absolutely you.”

  But what am I?

  Leah smiled at her reflection and said, “Good afternoon, I’m Leah and I’m the shift manager. What can I help you with today?”

  Leah closed her eyes and giggled. A real promotion. And she was going to say yes. Yes, yes, yes!

  Before she walked out the door to go to work Leah cast a glance over her shoulder at the box.

  It’ll make your dreams come true.

  Bob was pleased to hear Leah’s acceptance of the position and told her that he’d make the announcement to the employees on Wednesday. That gave her Monday and Tuesday night to have her girls’ night with Kelly and transform her into her new look.

  Leah’s shift was short on Sundays so it was still light when she was riding her bike back to her apartment. She was coasting by a strip mall when a sign caught her eye—kickboxing classes here daily!

  Leah had only noticed the gym before in passing. But that day the idea of taking kickboxing seemed to be the only thing she should be doing. Leah leaned to the right and rode into the parking lot. She chained up her bike outside of Fit4Life and headed for the door.

  As Leah stepped inside the gym and looked around at the variety of svelte women, buff men and the occasional old guy on a treadmill looking like he was trying to give himself a heart attack, Leah was reminded of why she avoided these places. Too many disapproving eyes. Too many hard bodies to remind her of how soft hers was. Too many mean bitches. Leah took a step backward. What the hell was I thinking?

  “Can I help you, sweetheart?”

  Leah turned her head and looked at the person behind the front desk who was speaking to her. Instead of a fake-baked beach bunny, the woman that was giving her a dazzling smile was in her sixties. She was thin but not scrawny. Fit but not buff. Leah relaxed a little.

  “I saw the sign about kickboxing.” Leah reminded herself that even if the class were full of size twos it didn’t matter. She didn’t base her feelings about herself on them. “When are classes and how much?”

  “Come right over here and I’ll show you.”

  Leah walked around to the front of the desk as the woman pulled out a gold photocopied pamphlet.

  “I’m Regina and I can answer any questions you have. Here, take this. It’s all about the kickboxing and boxing classes.”

  Leah took the brochure from Regina and briefly perused it.

  “You look all flushed,” Regina said. “Did you run here?”

  “No,” Leah said with a laugh. “I rode my bike.”

  “Good Lord, dear. It must be twenty degrees out there!”

  “Thirty-four,” Leah corrected. “But it gets me where I want to go.”

  “You need a car, honey? One of the guys here has one for sale.”

  “Maybe. So when are the classes?”

  “We have kickboxing classes every weekday morning at five, six and seven and every weekday night at six, seven and eight. Saturday and Sunday classes are at ten in the morning and seven in the evening. We try to accommodate everyone’s schedule.”

  “Sounds good. How much?”

  “If all you want to do is take the classes it’s $60 a month, no matter how many classes you do.”

  Leah nodded. With her new raise she could handle it.

  “Is it lots of people
who have done it before or…”

  “We have beginners often. You won’t be alone, sweetheart.”

  “Do I have to buy any gear?”

  “Most folks like to buy their own gloves but we do have a few that we keep around to lend to those who are just getting started. And I’ll tell you what—there’s a class starting in half an hour if you can get here and back with some sweats. If you sign up today I’ll even give you the first two weeks free, no obligation. Just so you can give it a try.”

  Leah smiled. She was sure that was the standard deal. She started to open her mouth to object to the class in half an hour then thought of Hale. Wouldn’t he say to go for it? Wouldn’t he tell her to seize the moment?

  “If I can get back here in thirty minutes I’ll do it. Gotta run.” Leah turned and sprinted out of the gym. She raced home, grabbed a set of sweats and got back to Fit4Life with two minutes to spare. Regina ran over and helped her wrap her hands while she was leading her to the room where the class was. She gave her a set of gloves and patted her on the back.

  “Good luck, sweetheart!”

  The room was only half-full. None of the other students were size twos. The blonde, buff instructor wasn’t even a size two. Leah breathed a sigh of relief. She fell right about in the middle.

  An hour later Leah could hardly move. She had beaten the punching bag before her to a bloody pulp. She’d punched and kicked more times than Bruce Lee and felt like she was ninety-two. Her shins screamed curses upon her and her entire family as they throbbed from the kicking, shin to bag, shin to bag about eight hundred times.

  “Everybody feels that way after their first class,” one of the other students said to her. “You get used to it and then it’s way fun. Stick with it!”

  Leah lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, her punching bag still swaying gently nearby. The instructor leaned over her and said, “Look at the bright side. You don’t have to run home!”

  “No, only ride my bike,” Leah moaned, thinking of the mile of hell that awaited her.

  “My God, are you serious?” she said. Leah nodded.

  “I’ve got a truck. If you want you can stick your bike in the back and I’ll give you a lift.”

  “For real? Oh God bless you.”

  The instructor laughed. “I’ll meet you out front in fifteen.”

  Leah was eternally grateful for the quick ride home. She found out that the instructor’s name was Brenda and she’d been teaching kickboxing classes at the gym for six months. Leah was impressed at how easily she lifted her bike out of the bed of the little red pickup like it was nothing more than a four-year-old’s tricycle.

  “See you tomorrow,” Brenda yelled out the window with a wave as she drove away.

  Tomorrow? Leah thought, horrified. I’ll be lucky to survive the night. She hobbled up the stairs to her apartment and collapsed into a tub of hot water. Leah looked down at her shins, swollen and darkening with the makings of some bruises that would make a football player proud. She wanted desperately to see Hale but she didn’t think she could handle one more ounce of physical activity, even if it was with him.

  The next morning Leah woke up softly from a deep, beautiful sleep. She opened her eyes and smiled. She’d dreamed of Hale giving her a bath, then giving her…all kinds of other things. She stretched out, feeling much better than she had the night before.

  Leah turned her head and looked at her clock. It read nine-thirty.

  “Shhh-shittt!” Leah squeaked. She’d slept straight through her eight-thirty class and would barely make it in time for her ten-thirty class. She leapt out of bed and dashed into the shower.

  Leah’s hair was still wet as she settled down into her seat for her public speaking class. Once she sat down and was still for a while the aching of her body began to set in. She’d run twice and taken an ass-kicking class after being mostly sedentary for years. It was going to take its toll.

  Leah woke herself out of her daze in time to hear Mrs. Larson discussing the final for the class.

  “We won’t have a regular test for our final. Your final exam will consist of a ten- to fifteen-minute speech on the topic of your choice. The only stipulation is that you have to be speaking as though you’re giving the class a mini-seminar. Teach us something. Tell us something we can take with us when we leave. Leave us wishing your speech were two hours instead of fifteen minutes.”

  The class laughed. Leah was still. Ten to fifteen minutes? That was forever. How could she possibly keep talking in front of the group that long? It might as well be two hours! And what the hell could she possibly talk about that would keep the class awake, much less wanting more?

  Leah walked home feeling sore and scared. She’d once heard that the fear of public speaking was worse than the fear of death. Maybe it was because teachers forced unsuspecting students to act like professional speakers, she decided.

  Once home, Leah powered up her aging laptop and sent an email to two of her classmates asking for notes from the class time she’d missed that morning, only half caring if they sent her a response. She was feeling worse by the minute and still needed to call Kelly.

  Leah held down the four on her cell phone, speed-dialing Kelly’s home phone number. She got her voicemail and asked her to call, then laid down on the sofa with three pillows and a strong desire for a dream about Hale.

  The blaring ring of Leah’s phone several hours later interrupted a naked shopping dream. Grateful, Leah picked up the phone and answered it with a muffled, “Hmmlpho?”

  “Leah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s Kelly.”

  “Oh hey, sorry. I was asleep.”

  “At three in the afternoon?”

  “Yeah. I’m sore.”

  “Really,” Kelly said in a very suggestive tone. “He that rough on you?”

  Yes.

  “I took a kickboxing class last night.”

  “Girl, I totally want to do that! Where are you going? I should do it with you.”

  “Prepare for a total ass-beating.”

  “I’m ready for it. So what’s up?”

  “I wanted to see if you were still up for our girls’-night thing.”

  “Totally. I’m off Wednesday so we could do it tomorrow night.”

  “Perfect. Can we do it at your place?” Leah decided she didn’t want to risk Hale showing up in the middle of girls’ night and suggesting a threesome. It totally sounded like something he would do.

  “Sure.”

  “I have news,” Leah said slowly.

  “You’re getting married?”

  “No.”

  “You’re pregnant?” Kelly sounded panicked.

  “No!” Leah laughed. “You’ll just have to wait.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I know. And I want you help me dye my hair.”

  “Now you’re talking. Blonde?”

  “Nope. I’m going back to my old color.”

  “Hmm,” Kelly said thoughtfully. “You have news, you’re going back to your old color…some sort of personal renaissance going on?”

  “Could be.”

  “Or does Mr. Hot Sex just like brunettes?”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Later!”

  Leah pressed down the red button on her phone to end the call and tossed it on the floor. She’d slept away most of her day off. Instead of feeling guilty as she normally would she felt blissfully at peace about it. But hungry.

  Pawing through the refrigerator and cupboards, Leah began to feel ill. Processed food, junk food, snacks. She started a pile on the kitchen table.

  “No wonder I feel like shit all the time,” Leah muttered. “Shit in, shit out.”

  By the time she got done she had a trash bag’s-worth of junk food on the kitchen table and a lime and a bag of baby carrots in the fridge.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said to herself. “Where do I work? A convenience store?”

  Leah sighed and helped herself to the
carrots, then added one of the import beers she’d supposedly bought for Hale. An hour later she walked back to the kitchen table and stared.

  For years all the things she saw in front of her had brought comfort to her. Problems of the day? Lost in a warm bowl of macaroni and cheese. Rude comments? Frustrations? There was a bag of chips that would take care of that.

  Leah picked up a bag of cookies and looked at it. She became painfully aware of her aching body from the workouts. She reconsidered the cookies. Finally she swallowed hard and said to it, “I don’t like the way you make me feel.”

  Before she could change her mind, Leah dumped all the junk from the table into a garbage bag and hauled it outside to the dumpster. She went back into her apartment, walked to the kitchen and said, “Well. Now I have no food.”

  You didn’t have any food before, she thought wistfully.

  Leah was too embarrassed to show up at work on her day off buying health food. So she dressed inconspicuously and biked over to the next closest grocery store, Mayfaire’s. She stood in the produce section and tried to figure out what people who cared about themselves put into their bodies.

  As she was perusing the fifty different kinds of lettuce mixes for a salad, suddenly she sensed that odd familiarity again. Not here, she thought, turning red. I’d die. Die! Leah turned her head slightly in either direction, looking for Hale. To her satisfaction he was nowhere in sight.

  Leah breathed a sigh of relief and went back to her salad selection. She felt someone walk behind her and then say, “Jim, can you please restock aisle four on those crackers that are on sale? We’re just about out.”

  The manager. Leah turned around to observe someone who had her job-to-be in action. Maybe learn a thing or two. As soon as she laid eyes on him learning about management was the last thing on her mind.

  He was possibly the most perfect thing she’d ever seen in her life. Tall but not too tall. Blond but not pale, his hair short and just a little messy. Not too heavy, not too thin. When he turned and smiled at Leah she felt her blood pressure drop and feared she was going to faint.

  “Hi,” he said. “What can I help you with today?”

  An inappropriate image flashed through Leah’s mind. All she wanted to do was take him home. He looked like everything she’d ever imagined when she pictured who she would bring home for Thanksgiving dinner. He looked like he could have fun and be responsible at the same time. He looked like he could lay down the law and kiss in a way that would make a girl melt in her shoes. His soft voice was chocolate pudding. His smile was boyish and friendly, yet Leah could see a different version of that smile teasing her between the sheets.