Fool Me Once

Ryan shifted slightly. Consuela was a strong-minded woman. He hadn't thought his attempts to see nothing would ever lead back to her in all of this had been all that obvious. There was a chance she would resent it.

"Foolish man," she whispered when she saw the momentary hesitation in his expression. "I saw what you were doing and I knew you were doing it for Belinda and me. Did you not know I would see that?" she asked gently.

Ryan didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

"You were so strong all along," she said in a wondering voice, "so gentle and kind to me and my baby. Did you think I wouldn't see how Belinda was beginning to love you...and you her?"

"How could Inot love her?" Ryan countered in a soft voice. "She's a part of you...and I loveyou more than living...you didn't seethat?" he whispered tenderly. "Didn't you know what was happening to me?" She nodded, laying her head on his chest for a long moment, listening to his heartbeat.

"You know I love you that way too?" she asked after a short, comfortable silence. She pulled back and looked up so she could see his eyes. Ryan shook his head slowly.

"I was only hoping," he said gently. He bent to kiss her again, more firmly this time. His tongue slipped between her lips to find a welcoming tongue ready to dual eagerly with his. Their bodies were suddenly straining together.

Breaking away from him, Consuela stared up at the man she loved and who she knew loved her. Smiling tenderly, she took his hand in hers and led him into her bedroom.

She stopped just short of the bed and turned around to face him. Suddenly shy before him, she raised her hands to the back of her neck to unbutton her dress. It was awkward and she did not want it to be this way the first time with Ryan. The button would not come undone.

Ryan saw her frustration and immediately guessed the reason. Taking her hips in his hands, he turned her gently around. The buttons quickly yielded to his fingers and he soon had the top of her dress off her shoulders and draped about her waist. With his hands caressing her shoulders, he bent to trail butterfly kisses up her neck to just behind each ear. Her deep sigh and quickened breath told him he was doing the right thing.

Stroking her back, he found out her bra was one that fastened in front. He reached around her to unfasten her bra with fingers whose deftness would have amazed him if he'd taken time to think of it. He lifted the cups from around her breasts and spread it wide. The straps slid off her shoulders and the bra fell to the floor between them.

He massaged her breasts gently and returned to kissing her throat. He'd known Consuela had large, well-formed breasts, but the knowing was so much less a thing than finally feeling their soft firmness in his hands. He cupped them, hefting them in his big hands.

Her nipples began to swell. They hardened and lengthened as his thumbs fondled them. He captured them between a thumb and finger of each hand and twirled them slowly, pinching them gently every so often.

Consuela moaned softly. She couldn't help it. Her pulse began to race every time her lover touched her in a different place. Her chest began to heave in her need for more air.

Ryan tugged her dress down her hips and down her legs to pool around her feet. Consuela stepped out of it and took a moment to kick off her high heels. They thumped on the carpet somewhere in the corner as she turned around to face Ryan and stepped back up to him. Her lips sought out his in the dim light coming from the living room and captured them in a demanding kiss.

His hands came up to cup her breasts again, but he found he could only do one at a time, standing as they were, so close together. With his left hand cupping her right breast, his right hand began stroking her back and ass. He squeezed her left butt cheek, fondling it and massaging while pulling her lower body more tightly against his. After a moment, he let his right hand find its way to her left breast and his left explored her back and buttocks.

Abruptly he tired of such half-measures. He knelt and planted little kisses down the middle of her body to her bellybutton while pushing her panties down to her ankles. They fell to the floor and Consuela slid her right leg a few inches to the side after pulling her foot out of them. Consuela's satin-smooth legs needed no stockings or pantyhose; she rarely wore them and had not tonight.

Ryan continued kissing her soft underbelly and beyond. His hands stroked the back of her bare thighs and calves. When his lips touched the top of her damp slit, she shuddered with pleasure.

"Darling," she whispered, "I can't take too much of that. Please...?" She caught his forearms in her hands and gently pulled upward, urging him to rise. He stood without a word and began to unfasten the buttons on his shirt.

"No..." Consuela said softly, "I want to..."

Ryan dropped his hands to his sides and let her remove his clothing as he had hers. While she unbuttoned his shirt, he worked his boots off somehow and kicked them away. He couldn't explain how he'd gotten them off when she asked him later.

Consuela worked more quickly than Ryan had. There was a feeling of urgency building in the little bedroom.

His shirt and slacks joined her dress somewhere on the carpeted floor. Consuela sat on the edge of the bed. They laughed together when she tapped each knee in turn so she could remove his socks. It could have been an uncomfortable moment. Instead, it was a warm, loving one.

She half-rose to meet his lips in a long kiss. Her hands caressed his chest muscles and paused to thumb his nipples into instant hardness. She stroked down across strong abdominals and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of his boxers. She slowly slid them down over his hips and let them fall. Balancing briefly on his right foot, he nudged the boxers out of their way. Consuela didn't notice.

Her attention was on Ryan's erection. It bobbed in front of her, longer and much thicker than she had thought it would be. Wrapping the fingers of her right hand around it, she bent forward slowly and kissed the tip of it. Ryan groaned.

"Honey, I can't take too much of that either...I'd love for you to keep going, but..." Ryan said quietly.

"I love you," Consuela whispered.

Without waiting for him to tell her what she already knew, she scooted slowly backwards on the bed. She hadn't released her hold on his penis and drew him after her down onto the surface of the bed.

"No," she said softly when he would have knelt to let his lips explore the place where her slim legs met. She put her hands on the sides of his face and urged him higher.

"I need you inside me," Consuela murmured. "Please...now?"

Ryan knee walked his way between Consuela's spread thighs until his groin was poised above hers. Consuela reached between them and grasped his hard cock again. She guided the tip closer and rubbed it gently up and down her slit. Her pussy juices were flowing and had been for a long while. Her vagina was more than ready to receive him.

Consuela positioned him at the entrance to her vagina and adjusted her position slightly. She pulled him into her and lifted her legs so her knees lightly touched the outside of his hips.

Ryan let his weight fall slowly. He pressed inside her smoothly and firmly. He felt his cock enveloped in a heated tightness that spread open for him as he plunged deeper.

Consuela moaned softly as her lover's cock drove into her. Her hands caught the back of his arms and pulled him tighter against her. She locked her heels behind his back and dragged him deeper inside.

In a short moment, they found a rhythm of thrust and withdrawal that suited them. Ryan repositioned his knees, moving his body higher so there would be even more contact between his cock and her clitoris as he rammed his hardness deeper inside Consuela's cunt.

She groaned out loud and threw her head back. Her eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling overhead. Her hands were on his hips now, yanking him forward with each down stroke and lifting him slightly as he withdrew.

Their pace quickened. Ryan tried for a slow tempo. He wanted to make this first loving last as long as he could make it, but their bodies' needs began to overwhelm them.

Consuela's breath came quick and shallow. Control of her body was slipping away, lost in the passion and pleasure of their coupling. Her hips began to rise, thrusting upward to meet Ryan's cock ramming deeper into her cunt. She ground her pubic mound against him, seeking even the slightest increase in contact.

Ryan could feel his climax coming fast. He panted harder; his lungs were beginning to starve for oxygen. His lower body was on fire as he drove his cock inside Consuela's vagina harder and faster. He wasn't able to slow himself much. She didn't want him to.

Her hot cavern was squeezing his cock, gripping it as it slid inside and only reluctantly releasing it when he pulled back. Her cunt seemed to be trying to milk Ryan's cock; the undulations of muscles rippled rhythmically from back to front and back again. Consuela began rotating her ass in a tight little circle. After a couple of circles in one direction, she stopped and went the other way and then back again.

Suddenly, Consuela's orgasm was almost there, full-blown and irresistible in its power. She bucked, surprised that she'd not felt it coming. Losing her momentary wonder, she shuddered, her hips writhed uncontrollably.

Ryan's caught his lover's new excitement. He began to plow his cock remorselessly into her. They were animals now; the slow buildup to making love had been forgotten. They were caught up in the sheer pleasure of the sex and pounding each other hard in order to cum.

Ryan was sent into a delirium. The sensations emanating from his cock overpowered his conscious mind. The exquisite sensations of having his cock squeezed tightly in her cunt in motion almost made Ryan cum right there. Somehow, he managed to hold off.

Powering in and withdrawing slowly in a quick, steady rhythm, he let Consuela sling her ass around any way she wanted. Every time he slammed his hips forward, she gave out a low moan or grunt as his pole rubbed against sensitive nerve endings.

After another moment, Consuela stopped whipping her hips around so wildly and began to simply thrust back up at Ryan as hard as he was shoving into her. There was no art or grace to it. The rhythm built faster and faster until both of them were having considerable trouble breathing. Had there been anyone to see, their faces would have been flushed a dark red.

"Unnngh, unnngh, unnngh, unnngh, unnnnnngh..." Consuela was gasping for air now. She couldn't get enough. She began to strain hard for her release.

Ryan was almost at the end of his endurance too. The violence of their exertions dictated a quick ending, simply because they couldn't sustain it for much longer. He plunged his cock into Consuela's cunt at a faster pace, striving to jam himself even deeper inside her.

Ryan could feel the tightening in his balls as his semen pumped upward. He felt the muscles in his groin and lower abdomen nearly cramp as the thick fluid was channeled into the tubes inside his penis. He couldn't stop it; the liquid heat was propelled down the length of his cock as he pushed into Consuela's pussy.

"ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!" Ryan tried to muffle his bellow as he found release. He buried his face in the pillow beside Consuela's head.

A great gob of his cum spurted out and splashed against the walls of her vagina deep inside. Ryan hunched his hips once, twice, and then again. A second spurt fountained out to spew across her cervix. He managed to hold back a third gushing for a time, but it was only long enough for Consuela's climax to begin to take hold.

Her orgasm built until she was beside herself with the need for completion. Her legs splayed wide on the mattress as she shoved her groin up at her lover while he thrust down into her cunt. She was doing everything she could to get the cock inside her rub harder against those especially sensitive places just inside her pussy. When her Ryan's hot cum began to spurt into her, she screamed out her need, pushing back and rotating her hips one last time.

Ryan's hips jerked and a fourth upwelling of sperm squirted inside Consuela. In truth, it was more a flow than a forced eruption. It was thinner than the previous ones had been. Consuela had milked everything he had out of him.

Consuela jolted to a stop, her body freezing in place with the intensity of her ecstasy. Unable to consciously move any of her limbs, she felt her tummy muscles contracting in time with the ripples spreading through her cunt. Her leg muscles spasmed, jerking uncontrollably. The intense sensations emanating from her vagina slowed, lessened, and finally gave up their lock on her body. She drew in as much air as she could, gasping desperately in her need for oxygen.

Exhausted, Ryan slipped his cock out of Consuela's pussy and collapsed to the bed beside her. It was a long while before their hearts slowed and their lungs finally filled with enough air.

"So...?" Ryan asked lazily. "Think you'll want to keep me around...you reckon there's a chance we could be...compatible?" Consuela patted his arm and turned to face him. Their breath mingled. Their passion gone for the moment, they kissed gently.

"Mmmmmmm," Consuela purred. "You just try and get away from me."

Ryan chuckled quietly. They were quiet for a time.

"Ahhhhhhh?" she murmured.

"Hmmmmmm?"

"In a minute...when you're ready...can I be on top?" She giggled in the dimness.

"I'm ready," Ryan whispered enthusiastically, "anytime you are."

There was no more talk for a long while.

Chapter 8

The trials for Sean Michaels and Carrie Gilchrist were relatively short. There wasn't much evidence for the United States Attorney to present, but it was all extremely compelling, very damning. The first witnesses were banking experts called to testify on the process of setting up accounts in overseas banks and how it was usually done to hide income otherwise taxable in the United States or send fraudulently obtained funds out of U.S. jurisdiction.

A severely dressed woman from the State Department testified none of the accounts to which the funds were funneled had a dime in them any longer. The governments in the various Caribbean countries had cooperated to the extent of confirming that, though they would not go further. It was typical of those countries, she said.

Special Agent Williams got on the stand to explain he and his partner had noticed a bank-owned laptop computer in defendant Michaels' possession when they took him into custody. They'd taken possession of it and labeled it as evidence. Yes, that was the evidence label and that was his signature on it.

A computer and software expert testified there was a variety of programs loaded on the laptop and one of them was a proprietary program used by the bank to connect to the bank's server from remote locations. He explained how it worked and showed the jury a few shots of some of the initial screens, including the one where the user entered their login name and password.

A representative from the phone company presented the telephone records for the phone registered to Ryan and Carrie Gilchrist and pointed out specific periods when the phone line had been in use for periods ranging from twenty-one to twenty-three minutes. The prosecutor wrote the times and dates on a big whiteboard brought into the courtroom for that purpose. No, he told the jury, there was no evidence the Gilchrists had ever had a wireless network setup.

A representative from the cable company told everyone the modem given to the Gilchrists was only connected to the big Dell computer in the home office. There were no connections set up for modem use on any of the other cable outlets in the house. Besides, their records showed there had been no traffic over that modem except for network initiated pulses during the times on the whiteboard.

Then, the Information Technology manager for the bank testified that Mr. Michaels' login name and password had been used to access a number of high-dollar accounts he was responsible for managing. Wire transfers, some of them set up programmatically to continue after the laptop's operator had signed off, had been started during specific timeframes. Yes, those exact times were the ones annotated on the whiteboard. The funds from the looted accounts had been forwarded to IP addresses identified as belonging to offshore banks.

The defense objected, saying the IT manager could not know that for a fact. Such things were outside his field of expertise. The IT manager was annoyed and said he could look up an IP with the best of them and what he'd just testified to was God's own truth. The judge allowed the testimony.

In any event, the next witness, a specialist dispatched from the Treasury Department reiterated the same information. He said he spent half his time creating lists of bank IPs of interest and the identified addresses most certainly did correspond to the offshore banks in question. The defense did not object. They had no questions for this witness.

When the prosecution finished with their presentation, the defense had little room left in which to maneuver. They tried to make the point no one had seen Sean Michaels actually enter the transfer information into the system. They said it could as easily have been Carrie Gilchrist who did it...or maybe someone else. The Gilchrist home didn't have a security system. Anyone could have been in the house. Who knew?

In the process, the defense conceded Sean and Carrie had been involved in lengthy affair. It was unavoidable. Sean and Carrie had given videotaped statements early on and both had readily admitted it.

There was no point in denying it. The TV show had been played numerous times by now. Excerpts had been shown several times on local commercial TV. The network had privately told the prosecutor when a copy was delivered to him, that it was one of the most watched episodes every time they replayed it.

The defense took every opportunity to slip in questions about whether anyone actually thought people going somewhere to have sex would actually take breaks to work on a computer? Mr. Michaels and Mrs. Gilchrist could have conducted the fraudulent transfers from the office, counsel for the defense said. They didn't need to sneak off to the Gilchrist home for that. What kind of sense did that make?

The prosecution didn't bother to answer the defense's question about why the adulterers had gone to the Gilchrist home to commit their fraud. There was no need. The facts were what they were.

The circumstantial evidence had mounted too high for the defense to answer. It was overwhelming. That none of the funds could be shown to have been forwarded to an account either party was known to have personally established made no difference. Nor was it pertinent that there was no evidence to show the two had actually spent any of the gains from the theft. The assumption was they hadn't had time.

In their rebuttal case, the prosecution brought an FBI criminalist in from Quantico, Virginia, to testify they had found no fingerprints anywhere in the house which couldn't be accounted for. None of the doors or windows had been forced open and there were no footprints below the windows or around the doors to indicate anyone had loitered there, waiting an opportunity to break in. There was absolutely no forensic evidence of any kind, he said, that evenmight support the defense claims there had been someone else, other than the home's occupants, known visitors, and Mr. Michaels, around the house at any time.