14. The Tempo of a Golf Swing Is a Waltz

14

The Tempo of a Golf Swing Is a Waltz

NICOLE LAMB

Kingston was still watching her, a smile growing on his lips.

Nicole sighed hard. “I don’t know if a few tips would even help. I have been to all sorts of coaches and classes that Sidewinder brings in. I’m way better at designing golf clubs than I am at the game, and I knew that when I took the job. I thought I might get better while I worked here, but I was delusional. I’m hopeless.”

He inclined his head and bit his lip for a moment, obviously calculating what he would say next. “You don’t really have a lot wrong with your swing. It’s just that each minor variation from the classical club path?—”

“Variation? Is that what we’re calling the massive flaws in my swing?”

He continued, enunciating precisely, “—each minor deviation is multiplying the effect on the club head path and angle.”

“That is the nicest way I’ve ever heard someone tell me that my swing sucks.” He must really want to have sex with her.

“Some deviations can compensate for each other, like in Jim Furyk’s swing. I heard an announcer once say that his swing has more movement than an octopus falling out of a tree, and yet he shot a fifty-eight at the Hartford Open. That was a miraculous day.”

They both stood in reverent silence for a moment at the pinnacle of golfing prowess, the holiness of the perfect round of twelve-under par, ten birdies and an eagle, no bogies.

Kingston continued, “I think just a few tweaks would vastly improve your results.”

Nicole shook her head. “Joe brought in pros every week to work with us so we would understand the game better, and every one tried to fix my swing. I made one guy cry. Surely, one of those PGA professional golf instructors would’ve picked up on ‘a few tweaks.’”

He shrugged. “Too many instructors try to force everybody into the same classical swing. Most people can’t do it. Let’s try something else.”

“I’m willing to try anything,” she grumbled.

Kingston retrieved his driver, the longest club in his bag, and stood directly across from her. “Assume the stance.”

He ordered people around really easily for a sales guy.

Nicole braced her legs and made a triangle of her arms, holding the club like she was ready to hit the ball. “How’s this?”

“Fine.” Standing across from her, Kingston held his golf club at the wrong end, wrapping his fingers around the bulbous head, and gently rested the foam grip on her head. “Now swing.”

She looked up from under his club lying on her skull. “But I’ll hit you!”

“There is no way you can hit me. At the bottom of your swing, your club should hit the golf ball, which is three feet in front of my shoes.”

“But if it bounces off the toe of the club?—”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Okay. Your funeral.”

“No more arguing. Hit the ball, Nicole.”

Considering where he was standing, if she mis-hit this golf ball off the toe of the driver, it would more likely be his nut shot than his funeral, but okay.

She screwed her eyes closed and flailed into her backswing.

With Kingston’s club’s handle resting on the top of her head, her shoulders rotated instead of her torso swaying. Even with her eyes shut, the sharp tick of her club head meeting the ball sounded better.

His low voice said, “Good girl.”

When she opened her eyes, the white trail soared above the fairway on the video screen and still leaned to the right, but the ball landed barely in the rough instead of far into the trees. “That sucked significantly less!”

Kingston was holding his club to the side and watching the flight of her ball on the simulator screen. “There’s one more thing we can work on.”

Nicole was so jazzed by her lack of complete ineptitude that she almost squeaked. “What’s that?”

“Assume the stance.”

Nicole did. “Okay.”

“This time, relax.”

She laughed out loud at him. “I can’t relax! I’m about to screw this up and launch my ball into the ocean!”

“Nah, come on.” He strolled around behind her, looking her over like she was a car he was thinking about buying. “You’re so worked up that you’re stiff as an iron rod. Your shoulders are up around your ears.”

Nicole listened to his footfalls on the plastic grass mat behind herself. “No, they’re not.”

“They are.” Warmth and gentle weight pressed her shoulders, and he whispered, “Relax.”

Her shoulders dropped incrementally with a jitter like they’d clicked down a flywheel.

His chuckle behind her head was friendly like she was cute. “No, really relax. Don’t just pretend to relax because that’s what you’ve been told to do.”

“Dude, get out of my head.”

His deep voice was closer. “Are you a firstborn or an only child?”

“First,” she whispered.

“Yes, and you got excellent grades in school.”

“I’m an engineer from a UC engineering school. So yeah, I took calculus my junior year of high school, and my grades were stellar.”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned calculus.” His hands stroked the tops of her shoulders from her ears to the joint. “Is this all right?”

His fingers gently smoothed the cricks and crackling from her neck to her biceps, a slow squeeze that milked the tension away. “It’s fantastic.”

His thumbs caressed from her skull down the back of her neck, draining the stress from her spine. “None of this matters,” he whispered.

“Okay,” she breathed.

“You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to relax and swing.”

“But the club head has to be at maximum speed and squared up at the point of impact?—”

“No. Nothing matters. You can relax now.” His arms slid around her, his hands caressing down her arms to her fingers gripping the club. “Relax your grip. You’re strangling it.”

The warmth of his large body against her back and around her arms felt like he was cradling her.

“Nothing matters.” He stroked the backs of her hands clenched around the club with his strong fingers. “You’re just going to move, to twist, to dance in my arms. Got it?”

The warm air around Nicole’s face felt too thick to breathe, like she needed to gasp. “Sure.”

“It’s like sex,” he murmured, his voice lower and his breath feathering her ear. “Just relax and feel me. Let me hold you and make you move in my arms.”

Her lips felt swollen, and she nodded.

His hands guided her arms and twisted her shoulders as he moved the club up to the three o’clock position in her backswing, then back to the ball. “We go back, and we’re relaxed. We come back to the ball, and nothing matters. And again. And again.”

It was like dancing. He was leading her, holding her, his arms around her. “Okay.”

“A little farther. Relax everything. Feel my hands holding you.”

Oh, she did.

“The tempo is a waltz. You move on one, and the top of your backswing is the next measure. Ready?”

She nodded, the back of her head rubbing his strong shoulder.

“All the way through now.” He guided her hands back and forward through the swing. “ One -two-three, one -two-three.”

Crack.

Nicole turned her head and watched the white trail of the golf ball arc gently into the video of the immaculate emerald lawn covering the black-rock peninsula jutting out into the sea, waves crashing on the boulders and spraying salt water into the air.

The ball dropped onto the fairway, bounced, and trickled to a stop near the center of the field. “Oh, wow.”

“Yes,” he whispered near her shoulder, his arms still around her. “Wow.”

His lips grazed the side of her neck.

A shiver swept from that so-sensitive place on her neck over her body, trembling in her legs.

His weight and warmth withdrew as he stepped back.

Nicole dropped her golf club, spun in his arms, and stepped with him.

A slow smile lifted one side of his mouth.

She was lifting her hands to his shoulders when his arms tightened around her, and he dipped his head. His lips found hers.

Kingston kissed her like he was famished, crushing her against him. One of his hands clutched her cheek in front of her ear, and the other wrapped around her waist and pinned her against his body.

The ocean crashed on the rocks below, a roar in her ears as loud as her pulse. He traced her waist to her hips and wrapped her arm there, lower, pressing her against him.

His body was hard against hers, steel cords of muscle wrapping around his waist and legs, and a hard ridge pressed in the front of his pants.

Nicole pushed herself harder against him, rubbing his body with an undulation of her hips.

With a quick kick, he swept her feet out from underneath her and grabbed her as she fell, following her down to lay her gently on the mat and hold himself above her.

“Oh,” she said, because everything was going so fast.

“Relax,” he murmured against her ear. “You are perfect. Just being here with me, you are perfect. Feel my hands holding you. Be with me.”

His words drugged her, turning the chocolate and sugar in her blood to passion as heady as wine. Heck, yeah, it was fast.

He kissed down the side of her throat, and she stretched to let him. With one hand, he popped open one button on her blouse, and he kissed her collarbones while his warm breath slipped lower over her skin.

His hands caressed her, held her.

Nicole relaxed into him, her skin attuned to his strong body above hers.

He wound her ponytail around his hand and used it as leverage to turn her head away so he could mouth her neck. “This could be fun. This could be very fun.”

Awareness drowned Nicole that she was playing with fire, that all sorts of things could happen that night because they were locked in the building together.

Under Kingston’s shirt, she could feel the rocky ripples of his torso, the boulders of his chest and shoulders, and she unbuttoned his shirt.

First, just one button popped open under her fingers, and then two more popped open. She slipped her hand inside his shirt, rubbing her palm over the smooth expanse of his pectoral muscle.

He groaned against the skin between her breasts, and his thumb gently rubbed over her nipple, sending a streak of pleasure through her.

God, she was up for anything.

Everything.

Nicole wasn’t like this. She’d had a few “serious” boyfriends but no one-night stands. No sultry affairs.

She was the girl who went home and did her homework, not trolled the bars.

And yet, under Kingston’s expert hands and mouth—and she could sure as heck discern that they were expert —to heck with it.

To heck with being the good girl.

To heck with being first in her class in high school and then at UC San Diego and never having any fun.

Never going to the beach with the poli sci majors.

Never going to the hills with the English Lit kids.

Nicole wrapped her leg around Kingston’s hips, grinding him against her.

That ridge she’d felt earlier—his male part —fit against her even through their clothes, pressing against her clit and rocketing sensation up her spine to her head. Her gasp echoed in her head.

“That’s right. Good girl,” he whispered. “Feel me.”

He was only rubbing against her a little, and she was already tightening inside.

A tiny part of her brain set itself aside from the maelstrom revving up in her flesh, observing. She didn’t usually react this strongly to men. This kind of response usually took a long date and romantic stuff and lots of foreplay.

Interesting.

Kingston flipped open the buttons on her blouse, dragged the fabric and her bra aside, and captured the top of her breast in his mouth.

The deluge of sensation swamped her, lifting her back off the floor as she wrapped herself around him, feeling what he was doing to her.

Her body smacked that standing-alone part of her brain and dragged it under. She was just her body now, no thoughts, no mind.

He popped his mouth free. The cold air hit her nipple, and more sensation crashed through her. She arched, gasped.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he muttered. “Let’s see if I can make you do that again.”

He pressed his mouth over her other breast, rocking her like she’d been thrown in the ocean. His arm slipped under her back, and he held her against his mouth.

Her body closed around him, arms and legs clinging to him while he suckled her and ran his tongue over her breast. Air rushed in her throat and lungs, dizzying her.

More, she needed more. She needed him all.

She grabbed at his belt, her fingers slipping off the tightly cinched leather.

His mouth left her breast, and he pressed his body against hers through their clothes. His voice in her ear was as harsh as her own gasps. “Birth control?”

Her heartbeat pounded in her throat and ears. “Wha-what?”

“Are you on the birth control pill?” he asked, his voice desperate. “Tell me the truth.”

His sounds finally resolved into words. “No. I’m not in a relationship right now, so I’m not.”

“I suppose not being in a relationship is good,” he muttered again, his voice hoarse. “At least I can have you with my mouth.”

“You don’t have to—” Nicole panted. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to?—”

“Fuck, yes, I’m going to have you. You’re too beautiful. You’re too sexy. Unless you say no, I am absolutely going to make you scream my name.”

“Kingston—”

“Yeah, like that, only louder.”

“But I’m not on?—”

“I won’t do anything that might get you pregnant. I don’t want that either, yet. Just lie back and enjoy it. Close your eyes like a good girl. You’re so wound up. Relax and feel me touch you.”

Nicole let one of her arms drop to the side.

“That’s a good girl. Relax. Let me touch you. Let your whole body unwind, open yourself, and let me touch you.”

One of her legs dropped to the side of him, but with her knee up.

“We’re on the fifth fairway at Pebble Beach. You can hear the Pacific crashing on the rocks to the right of us. We’re alone. Nobody can see us. It’s just you and me out here. Feel me.”

Cool air touched her stomach as he unbuttoned her shirt, and his warm mouth followed the chill toward her navel.

She touched his hair, silky between her fingers, and stretched to feel the back of his neck and shoulders.

“Mmmm, that’s right. Touch me.”

The waistband of her pants loosened, and then the fly unzipped as his tongue slid down her stomach.

Was he ? —

His hands curled around her open pants top and wrestled the fabric down, leaving her lying on her back and exposed as he moved to strip them entirely off her. The plastic grass of the golf mat prickled her bottom.

The vulnerability of being naked from the waist down and her shirt hanging open shamed her, but Kingston rolled right back between her legs and pressed his mouth on her.

His tongue slipped between her folds, licking and rubbing inside.

Pleasure cascaded through her, and she arched and almost scooted away from the overwhelming rush.

The bright sun shone on the video screen above her, and birds cried, and the ocean crashed on the rocks below.

He wrapped his arms around her thighs and sucked on her, every caress with his tongue and lips wrapping her, compressing her inside until she was mindless, writhing, and then pulses of absolute bliss slammed up her body, waves of ecstasy caressing every muscle as she strained, her heel slipping on the plastic grass as she gasped.

Kingston gentled his mouth, keeping the caresses going, until her brain was pulverized and she nearly rolled backward.

And then he was crawling up her body, gathering her wretched and wrung-out form against his strength while she clung to him, clutching his shirt in her fists, pressing her forehead against his chest as she rasped for breath.

He asked, “You okay, there?”

“Oh my God.” Nicole could barely force the words out of her spasming throat. “Yes. I mean, other than I think I died. But yes.”

His chuckle echoed in his chest under her ear. “Good.”

The shivering in her limbs settled, and then she was aware that he’d done something for her but hadn’t had anything.

After pulling on her pants but not buttoning up her shirt, Nicole rolled over and laid on Kingston’s chest.

His massive chest, now that she was up there.

She said, “Your turn.”

“Oh, my little engineer. You do not have to balance the equation.”

Nicole grabbed his arms and pinned his wrists above his head. She locked her elbows so he was wedged in place. “What if I want to?”

Kingston casually lifted one of his arms from where she held him down, his biceps rounding as he flexed his arm, moving her whole body and all her weight backward, and he scratched the side of his nose before he stretched his arm back where’d she put it. “I’m not going to say no.”

Okay, he’d made his point that he was stronger and could escape any time he wanted to.

She ducked her head and ran her mouth up the side of his neck, the evening stubble of his beard rough against her lips. The last dregs of a warm cologne like whiskey and leather scented his skin, and his shirt collar was exquisitely soft against her cheek.

His slight exhalation and stretch underneath her were sexy as heck. His heavy muscles tightened under his clothes like he was winding like a spring.

“There are chairs over by the computer,” he said, his voice rough. “I could sit there.”

“I like you here,” she whispered near his ear and nibbled down his neck.

“Yeah, but—” His soft groan as she unbuttoned his shirt made her smile. “It might be easier on the chair, with you on your knees.”

She slipped a hand under his shirt, which was so amazingly soft that it must be silk. His trousers were cloud-soft like they’d been knitted out of kitten-tummy fur. “Do you have back problems?”

“No, but?—”

Nicole pushed his shirt aside. A tiny bumblebee was embroidered in gold thread near his waistband, and she shoved his undershirt up to reveal his cobblestone abdominal muscles and heavy pectorals.

A flap and a hook covered his pants’ button, and she was working her way through the layers of enclosures and prying the button through the buttonhole when his body moved under her hands, and then his arms wrapped her waist and she was airborne.

“Hey!”

Her head was hanging down his back as he caveman-carried her the few yards—holy cow, he was strong like she hadn’t weighed more than a piece of fluff when he’d picked her up and flung her over his shoulder—to the couch and chairs grouping and then slid her down the front of his body, a hard, bumpy ride. She landed in a heap at his feet where he was sitting, knees spread, on the couch.

He looked down at her as if from a throne, his eyes hooded, and said, “It’s up to you.”

Nicole slid her hands up his legs and almost— almost —stood up and walked away because he’d taken over, but his muscular thighs under her palms felt like a marble statue of Hercules.

He was really, really gorgeous. As an engineer who considered design as much art as science, she wanted to admire his form.

With her hands, and with her mouth.

And with her body, but she needed the Pill for that.

She went back to work on getting his pants undone.

The fine fabric was so soft that it caught in her calluses, and even the zipper worked smoothly like a properly designed machine. These were some expensive clothes he was wearing.

Underneath, his black boxer-briefs covered his erection, and she pushed everything down to release him.

Oh, jeez. There was a lot of him.

Okay, she’d just do her best. Nobody ever complained about a blow job.

“Good girl,” Kingston said as he watched her from above, adjusting the angle of hips on the couch.

Nicole smiled up at him, licked her upper lip, and then ran her tongue over the head of his thick arousal and sucked that massive shaft into her mouth.

She peeked just in time to see his eyes roll up, and he threw his head back, arching his back off the couch, flinging his arms out to the side, and hanging onto the back like he was going to fall off the Earth. “Fuck!”

That was gratifying.

His hardness filled her mouth, and she rubbed her tongue over the thick veins coiled on the sides. As she pushed down, taking more of him until he bumped into the back of her throat, his fingers threaded into her hair.

His natural male musk filled her nose as the blunt end pushed into the back of her throat, choking her. She gagged a little and wrapped her fingers below her lips because she couldn’t take him all.

“Fuck, yes,” Kingston groaned.

Up and down, his thin skin moving like velvet over the steel core under her hand and lips.

Every time his cock hit the back of her throat, he arched, a muscular undulation under her other hand resting on his flat stomach, and he moaned like she was destroying him. She caught him looking at her, watching her, his blue eyes intense, almost glaring, and then a wave rolled up his body and he closed his eyes for a moment before staring at her again.

Yeah, this was—this was fun.

Kingston’s fingers clenched in her hair, and he panted, “I’m close. I’m getting close. Watch out. If you don’t want— Fuck!”

Inside her mouth, he throbbed, his rigid flesh pulsing, and salt flooded her mouth.

She sucked him down, sucked as he continued throbbing and gasping, and then his fingers tightened in her hair and held her on him. “Fuck. Fuck yeah, Nicole.”

His hand fell away from the back of her head, and his whole body dropped, limp. “God, you’re amazing. I don’t think I can stand.”

Nicole wiped the corners of her lips with her fingers and crawled up his body onto the couch to rest beside him. “Yeah, I know.”

“I didn’t know that a blow job on the fifth fairway at Pebble Beach was on my bucket list, but I can die a happy man now,” he panted, clutching her to his chest and dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

She chuckled and pushed herself up. “Yeah, me, too. So, are we going to finish the golf?”

He covered his eyes with the back of his arm. “Give me a minute. Tell the foursome behind us to play through if they’re done watching the show.”

Nicole laughed out loud.

Kingston tucked himself away, and then he grabbed her and snuggled her down in the crook of his arm. “I don’t think I’ll ever look at a golf simulator the same way again.”

“We can always fire up Augusta National and give new meaning to Amen Corner.”

A jolt rolled through his body, and he clutched his chest. “This could be a really long night.”

“We could get locked in here tomorrow night, too.”

He ran one finger down her cheek, inspecting her like he was marveling at a really good design. “No, I want to take you out to dinner and then back to my hotel for a long, long night.”

Her whole body quivered.

His smile grew. He ran his hand down her curves from the swell of her breast to her hip. “I can hardly wait.”

Nicole smiled at him until her grin felt forced and then like a dead and rigor-mortissed Cheshire Cat.

They couldn’t just roll over and fall into an orgasm-induced sleep because all her techs would walk into the building and the golf simulator room the following day and find them asleep on the floor in a mortifying state of dishabille.

She rolled off the couch and stood up while buttoning her blouse. “So, are we going to finish playing Pebble Beach, or what?”