Prologue

 

The fury of inspiration left her sweating in bed, words spinning inside her head, tie me to a tree, thrust me against an old tree stump...the wellspring from which all the rest flowed free, arriving with the first bolt of lightning, disappearing with the last rumble of thunder as the storm moved out. She tried to remember the gist of it, grabbing words out of the ethers like a child grabbing for lightning bugs on a summer evening and shoving them into a mayonnaise jar for safe keeping. The light went on in her bedroom as she reached for her metaphorical mayonnaise jar - her journal - and began to jot down the substance of her scattered thoughts in a rushed, chaotic scrawl. There was little but a disordered array of word pictures when she finally turned out the light. But she needed sleep. Even if it was just a few hours, her psyche needed rest and, more importantly, some distance from the tumultuous meeting of storm and muse.

Six am in the morning, she awoke again, driven to the computer before the sun rose, before thoughts lost their urgency and passion died.

Oh, but passion was going nowhere that morning but into keystrokes and the frenzied minutes when the words spilled from muse to computer in one singular burst of inspiration, the first of many such spontaneous combustions she would experience in the weeks ahead.

 

She dashed to her blog and posted the piece before she lost her nerve. And with the same rash of thrill and fear, she sent a link to knighthawk925:

 

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST she wrote in the subject line. In the body of the email...

 

"...I woke early, driven to my computer. Doesn't happen very often (in fact, I can't even remember the last time it did) but I'm not entirely surprised. Oh hell, I'm not surprised at all. May sound a bit personal, because it is. But it's good enough to post on my blog. Don't worry, no names mentioned."

 

She included the link, hit send, then waited staring at the monitor as if she actually expected him to open the email and reply within a minute's time.

She waited two fucking days, from noon to noon to noon, 48 hours of anxious wondering, left suspended and stunned by what the storm ushered in and this man had done to her peace of mind. What were you thinking, girl! She'd manufactured a chorus of second thoughts, one after another drifting into her mind, only to be shoved aside so another could compound her anxiety. Why the hell did she attribute this crazy explosion of writing to a man she barely knew? She could be dead wrong about him and he was nothing but a lecherous pervert who just wanted inside her pants. Still she knew. Some uncanny intuition spoke to her about honest motives and inherent kindness. In her gut where it counted, she knew he wasn't the kind of pervert to take advantage of a vulnerable woman fresh out of a long term relationship. No, he was the clean, wholesome kind of pervert, with common decency and a sincere desire to know her as more than the sexual slut she was. Spontaneous Combustion was all about what their brief weeks courting on-line had done to her. Sending him her explosive writing was the right thing to do. She was certain.

If he bolted because she was too much slut for him; if he was turned off by this small taste of her flaming passion, then she'd be better off having driven him away. Might as well send him off to a woman who'd be happy with mild manners, kind conversation, and a little bit of kink on the side, but nothing more than that.

Clearly, her kink was front and center in her world, and it was too late in the game of life to deal with men who couldn't handle her sexual inclinations.

She would readily insist that she wasn't too much to handle. She was an easy woman to read, with simple needs and much to give. No mysteries, nothing crazy about her; just an uncomplicated woman at heart who wanted someone with whom she could share her lust, and provide for her a safe place to bare her soul. Her requirements were few - a self possessed man she could respect, sexual chemistry, heartfelt compassion and a strong sense of authority. That was it in a nutshell. The man she would submit to could be no less.

Her mind might have been filled with chaos and wild imaginings that could resemble a whirling dervish, but that was just smoke and mirrors to one who looked a little closer. She was perfectly sane, perfectly normal, a perfectly regular woman of her times. A slut, yes, but a perfectly normal kind of slut, and a woman on the brink of change.

 

Forty-eight fucking hours later word came back, the email simple:

 

"Did I cause all that? 

I have the trees, I have the rope, I only need you."

 

She almost laughed out loud. Did I cause all that... She shook her head and smiled. Her heart warmed and she giggled at a typical clueless male with his almost bashful response.

But the message had been delivered, and desire swept through her again with such sudden urgency that she dashed off her reply and hit send before she could give it a second thought...

 

"Yes, yes yes! You caused all that.

Along with that darn thunderstorm...and that slave scene you told me about, the one at your lake house that's been going through my head like a broken record.

I'll be waiting."

Chapter One

 

Life was chaos all around her on the eve of France, her head spinning with random thoughts. The trip was an imminent reality and there was much to be done before she left, a thousand details that required her attention. Though it had taken a year's worth of planning and a lot of hard-earned cash, Jeni had little time to think about embarking for this foreign land miles from home. Though hugely important to her - she'd seen it as a pivotal piece in the journey to the next phase of life - when asked if she was excited about France, a question that came at her from all directions, she couldn't exactly say she was. She hadn't the time to get excited, and almost to the day she left, the fact that she was actually going to France still seemed like a fantastical dream.

Plans for a few days off from work before the trip failed to materialize. Even the day before she left, there was a project at work to complete and progress was painfully slow. None of this was a surprise. Life routinely gets in the way of best laid plans. And yet, for all the activity, all the details to attend to and the lists of items not to forget, what was responsible for her current turmoil really wasn't her job or the packing or the butterflies in her belly on the eve of her first Transatlantic flight.

On this occasion, instead of revolving around the logical suspects, chaos revolved around a man.

Absurd, huh? After twenty years with one faithful man and giving up men for one long year of loss, the idea that a man would rock her world on the 10^th of May, when the first knighthawk925 email landed in her Outlook, was absurd. What the hell was she supposed to do with the eager attentions of an on-line suitor? Especially now, when starting a relationship should have been the last thought in her mind. And yet, once the conversation began, the emails between Jeni and Jack Hawking continued at a brisk pace and soon every minute, every thought in her mind seemed to be taken up by this phantom behind the email address. Was it the easy conversation? Or the face staring back from his obscure photo? Or the fact they shared a common interest in kink?

Absurd, yes. The whole idea of him was absurd, but the most fantastically amazing distraction she'd had after a long list of distractions that had kept her slightly unfocused over the previous year. Hard to believe that someone she'd never laid eyes on could take hold of her attention in such a commanding and thorough way. When chaos suddenly became a beautiful place to be in those hectic days, she could do nothing but smile when the thought of him took control. She'd retreat to her bedroom, finding herself wet with arousal from the moment she touched the sensitive place between her thighs to minutes down the road when an explosive orgasm caused her back to arch and her body to convulse with spasms. Juices flooded over her hand, as Jeni imagined Jack's hands on her, his lips on her, his cock inside her cunt, her mouth wide open - he could penetrate that, too.