Naked macaroni was now my very favorite meal. After fucking Bridget in the kitchen, we decided to make a quick dinner. She’d attempted to put her clothes back on, but I persuaded her to cook with me naked. Naked cooking led to naked eating, and I was beginning to think we should just stay naked forever. Naked with Bridget was fucking awesome.
We were sitting on the floor in the living room with our empty plates on the coffee table. I swiped two fingers across the remnants of sauce on her plate and used it to paint one of her nipples before I bent to lick it off.
“Mmm. This sauce is fucking fantastic.”
She laughed. “You’re a little insane, Simon.”
“Come on, admit it. You just eyed the sauce on my plate and thought about painting my cock, didn’t you?”
My beautiful, naked girl blushed. “We’re already one over our agreement. Not sure a painting party would be a good way to ensure we kept to the terms.”
Fuck the terms.
“About that. We agreed to have sex once only, right?”
“Well, clearly those terms were modified, but yes, that’s what we agreed to.”
I nodded. “Good. So there was no other agreement.”
Bridget squinted. “What are you getting at? I can see the wheels spinning inside that mop-covered head of yours.”
“Well, we agreed on sex, right?”
“Yes…”
“I’d like to point out that it was your former President who declared that sexual relations referred only to the act of having intercourse.”
Bridget choked on the wine she was sipping. “You want to use President Clinton as your precedent so you can what…feel me up still?”
I nodded. “Amongst other things, yes.”
“What type of other things?”
“Well, I’d like to refrain from making a conclusive list that can be held against me in the form of a second agreement. But I believe cunnilingus, fellatio, fingering, anal sex, heavy petting, handies, pillow pounding, and mutual self stimulation with visualization are all excluded from our deal.”
“I got the first few.” Her face was adorable when it scrunched up. “But what in the Lord’s name is pillow pounding and mutual self stimulation with visualization?”
“Ah. I’m glad you asked.” I reached over and grabbed both her breasts. (Have I mentioned I fucking love naked macaroni?) Squeezing those beauties together, I looked up at her and wiggled my brows. I’m going to stick my cock between these beautiful pillows—hence, pillow pounding.”
Bridget’s eyes bulged, so I took that as a sign I should keep talking.
“And mutual self stimulation with visualization? You’re going to open these legs wide and show me your pretty pussy while you get yourself off with your vibrator. I’ll be doing the five knuckle shuffle on my wood at the same time. Hence, the mutual part.” I winked.
Bridget wanted to be appalled—she really did. But her wide eyes dilated and nipples pebbled telling me she really liked my dirty talk even if she didn’t think she was supposed to. “Simon—we can’t do any of that.”
“And why not?”
“Let me ask you something serious for a minute?”
“I was being serious, but okay.”
“Are you still planning on moving out?”
My heart sank. I never really wanted to move out to begin with. “Do you want me to move out?”
I saw the sadness in her face. “Do you think we can live together and keep our hands off of each other?”
Honesty isn’t always the best policy. I’d learned that in third grade when Alison Eggert asked me if she looked plump in the dress she was wearing. Apparently, yes was unacceptable even if the stripes made her look a bit portly. She never spoke to me again. I put on my best serious face and responded to Bridget adamantly with a lie. “Yes, I do.”
Bridget’s brows jumped. “Yes? You do?”
“If that’s what you need from me, yes.”
She sighed. “God, Simon, why do we have to be in such different places in life and want such different things out of it when we obviously enjoy each other so much?”
I fucking hated that she was right. “I don’t know, Bridget. But it seems a little cruel, doesn’t it? You haven’t had sex in two years, and I haven’t wanted to be around a woman after sex in…I don’t know…almost my entire adult life. Isn’t there a way for us to live in the moment and enjoy what we have for just a little while longer?”
She looked back and forth between my eyes. “Where were you planning on moving?”
“I was going to stay with Calliope and Nigel for a few weeks while I found myself a new flat.”
“Well, how about this. Why don’t you do that? Go stay with Calliope for a week or two. But don’t get a new place just yet. Let’s keep some distance between us and see if we can be adults about it. Maybe our libidos will cool off, and we’ll be able to resume cohabitating after a little while.”
I fucking hated the thought of leaving her, even if she was right that it needed to happen. “If that’s what you want, okay, I’ll go stay with Calliope for a while. But I’d like to ask two things from you, first.”
“What’s that?”
“One. I’d like to amend our original agreement to one day of sex, twenty-four full hours, rather than one act. Because I want you in my bed tonight, and I plan to fuck you several more times.”
She swallowed. “Okay. We can do that. What’s the other condition?”
“I want you to agree to my definition of sexual relations. Because on the off-chance you beg me to make you come, I want to be clear on the methods I’m permitted to use.”
Bridget laughed. “You’ve got a deal. But you should know, I’ve never begged anyone to make me come in my entire life. So no matter how handsome, well endowed, and witty you are, I doubt that will be happening, Simon.”
I smiled from ear to ear—loving hearing that she’d never begged a man. But even more so, I couldn’t wait to be the first for her.
My good mood had plummeted the first night I slept at Calliope’s. I wanted to be back at home with Bridget in the worst way.
Back at home with Bridget.
What the fuck?
It wasn’t my home. My home was in England.
Frustrated, I punched my pillow a few times to fluff it up and laid back down, staring at the ceiling in the dark. For the most part, I lived a very simple life. I didn’t need fancy cars or money. I worked hard, yet didn’t need to be the chief. But every once in a blue moon, something came along and lit a fire under my ass. My desires were limited, but when they struck—they were consuming.
There were no two ways about it, I desired Bridget Valentine.
I shouldn’t.
We shouldn’t.
But the woman was addicting.
At four-thirty in the morning, I still hadn’t slept a wink, so I decided to go into the hospital early. Maybe the change of scenery would help, and I could catch some shuteye in the residents’ lounge.
I was surprised to find Calliope in the kitchen standing in front of the coffeemaker.
“Does it brew faster when you stare at it?”
Calliope jumped. She turned clutching her chest. “You scared the fuck out of me, Simon.”
“Sorry. I thought you heard me walk into the room.”
“It’s four-thirty in the morning, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. My hearing is still sleeping.”
“Why are you up so early?”
“This is what time I get up every day. I teach a 6AM, private, sunrise yoga class over on Gooseberry Beach.”
“Damn. I didn’t know that.”
“Why are you up? I thought you said your shift didn’t start until eight today?”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Calliope nodded. The coffee pot beeped to indicate it’d finished brewing, and she grabbed two mugs from the cabinet above her head. “Still take your coffee the same way?”
“I do. I don’t change good things.”
Calliope fixed us both coffees, and together we sat at the kitchen table. “Is the bed in the guest room not comfortable?”
“No, it’s fine.”
She sipped her mug and watched me over the brim. “You look pathetic, Simon. Like someone just ran over your dog. When are you just going to give in?”
“Give in?”
“That you have feelings for Bridget, and you belong together.”
I wouldn’t even attempt to lie about the first part. “I do have feelings for her. But we don’t belong together—we want very different things. That’s the problem.”
“What does she want that you don’t?”
“A family, for starters.”
“Why are you so adamant that you don’t want a family to begin with? You’re still so young. You’d make an incredible father. You shouldn’t rule that out as a possibility.”
“Look who’s talking? I don’t see your house filled with a bunch of little buggers running around. Tell me, Calliope, why is that? Because I’m pretty sure that our reasons aren’t all that different.”
Calliope looked away for a minute and then her eyes met mine. “Nigel and I have been trying for two years. I’ve had three early miscarriages.”
“Fuck. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad. I told you to prove a point.” She reached out and took my hand. “I was there, too, Simon. I feel as responsible as you do. We were stupid kids when the three of us went out on that lake together. I think of Blake all the time. But I’m not punishing myself by not having children of my own.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Really? Then what are you doing?”
“I don’t know the first thing about having kids.”
“Newsflash, buddy, no one does when they start off. You drop them a few times, pull their head out from between the stair balusters, and get scared when their poop turns hot pink to match the crayon they snuck and ate when you weren’t looking. But you figure it out.”
“Bridget has a kid. She knows what she’s doing.”
Calliope studied me for a moment. “Let me ask you something. What does Brendan want more than anything?”
I shrugged. “A new bike. Flat black with flames.” I wonder if they make one my size.
“And is he allergic to anything?”
“Latex. What’s your point?”
“Just go with it. How about his teacher? What’s her name?”
“Miss Santoro. Cute, but doesn’t hold a candle to Bridget.”
“Favorite subject?”
“Science.”
“And did you go to field day with him a few weeks ago where he smiled all that day and then for two more after?”
“Yes.”
“Seems like you know what you’re doing with Bridget’s kid, too, Simon. So what other excuse you got?”
“Well, there’s the little fact that my home is in England.”
Calliope shook her head. “What’s back there for you? A home isn’t a bunch of bricks. A home is your happy place.” She looked at the time on her watch. “I gotta get going. But think about it. If I told you to close your eyes right now and imagine being anywhere in the world you could, what would you see?”
I waited until my friend was out the door before I sat at the kitchen table and shut my eyes for a few minutes. I wanted to conjure up pictures of an oceanfront hut in the Indian Ocean, or the top of the beautiful mountains of Snowdonia in Wales as my happy place. But when I closed my eyes, the only thing I was able to see was Bridget. She was my happy place.
Fuck. I was even more screwed than I thought.