I looked over at her. “Is what strange?”
“Being in bed with someone else.”
Returning my eyes to the ceiling, I put my hands behind my head. “Yeah. It is.”
She turned onto her side to face me, tucking her hands beneath her cheek. “I’m glad you didn’t lie and say it wasn’t.”
I focused on her again. “I won’t lie to you, Margot. I promise.”
“OK.” Her voice was soft. “I was brushing my teeth and thinking that I shouldn’t have pressured you to stay. I didn’t think about it being strange for you that way. I feel bad.”
“Hey. Come here.” I reached for her, and she moved close, tucking herself along the side of my body. Her skin was warm and soft and smelled like vanilla. My cock stirred beneath the sheets. “I stayed because I want to be here with you tonight. Yes, it’s the first time I’ve spent the night with anyone other than Steph in a lot of years, and yes, it’s a little unfamiliar, but it’s not uncomfortable.”
“OK.” She kissed my chest, slinging an arm over my torso. “Since we’re being honest, I have to tell you how much I love your chest.”
I smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her lips back and forth on my skin, slid her hand up my ribcage. “From the moment I met you.”
I thought for a second. “In the kitchen?”
“Yes. You were so grouchy and mean, but you had this amazing body. I felt like you could snap me in half, and you looked like you wanted to.” Her fingertips brushed over my nipple, and my dick jumped so high it made the sheets move.
“I think I did.” Oh fuck, now she was circling my other nipple with her tongue, flicking it gently. Heat rushed through my body, prickled over my skin.
“Maybe you still will.” She pinched the nipple beneath her fingers, and I inhaled sharply. It felt so fucking good, and it was one of those things I’d never ask for but loved. Her hand moved slowly down my stomach. “I’ve never seen a body like yours before. So tight and muscular. All these ridges and lines.” She let her fingers ripple lightly over my abs, making them clench. “It’s incredible how strong you are. It makes me think of all the things you could do to me.”
Keep going, I thought, and keep fucking talking.
Her hand closed around my cock, now fully hard and aching. “And this,” she said, her voice low and fluid. “When I saw you on the dock, dripping wet and completely naked, my eyes went right here.” Working her hand up and down my shaft, she picked up her head to speak softly in my ear. “I had thoughts I’ve never had before.”
“Like what?”
“I wanted to watch you get hard. I wanted to get my hands on you. I wanted to taste you.”
“Fuck,” I rasped, one hand seeking her breast, the other snaking down her lower back.
“I was so bad,” she whispered. “I wanted you to touch yourself, and I wanted you to catch me watching you. I wanted you to punish me for it.”
“Yeah? How would I do that?” I pinched her nipple hard enough to make her gasp and slid my middle finger along the crack of her ass.
She went still. “Actually, I don’t know. I didn’t get that far.”
“Never mind. You couldn’t dream up anything close to what I’d have done.”
“Tell me,” she begged. “I want to hear it.”
“Nope. I’ll let it come as a surprise.”
A slow, sly grin stretched her lips. “Fair enough.”
I moved fast, flipping her onto her back across the bed and pinning her wrists to the mattress, anchoring her body with my hips. “I don’t always play fair.”
The grin vanished.
But her eyes glittered.
When we were finally sated—no easy feat, Margot had an appetite for sex that nearly matched my own—we collapsed on top of the twisted sheets, her head on my chest, one arm and leg draped over me. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.
“This OK?” she asked. “I don’t know if you’re a cuddler or not.”
“It’s OK.”
“Night,” she murmured sleepily.
“Night.”
She fell asleep in minutes, her breathing deep and rhythmic, her body relaxed. I lay awake for a while, listening to the rain, in awe of her and this night and myself. It hadn’t been an easy decision, coming back here. It hadn’t been easy asking her not to leave tomorrow. It hadn’t been easy climbing into bed with someone other than the woman I’d married.
But everything else…everything else had been so easy. Talking to her. Touching her. Listening to her. Being inside her. Why was that? How was it possible I was this comfortable with someone I’d only met days before, someone so completely different from me? It didn’t seem real.
So let it be a dream, then. Don’t analyze it. Don’t scrutinize it. Don’t look for meaning that isn’t there.
I closed my eyes, content to be with her in a temporary dream world where I wouldn’t be judged—where neither of us would be judged—for what we wanted.
For the first time in years, I fell asleep in the dark.
And slept through the night.
Twenty-Two
Margot