I had never been so pleased to get home—a feeling was utterly wrong, totally distant and completely unfamiliar. Normally, I had to read one more file, make one more very important home visit, scan the library for a crucial research paper, or sit in the pub before making it home for the day. But tonight, I needed a soak in the bath with a beer or four.

Home was currently an empty shell of a flat that had one dining chair and a beer crate with a table lamp sitting on top. I had a bed on order, but until it arrived, I was on the floor in a sleeping bag every night praying for morning so I could get up and crack out the knots running down my spine. A sofa, dining table and TV stand were being delivered with the bed, so once they were here, it would be home. In all honesty, the place and everything that was going to be in it would never be my home. My home was with Abi. Always.

There was something else missing, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think about that yet. I had another few days before I had to face it.

I shrugged off my shirt and placed a few beers on the floor beside the bath. I turned the taps and started to run the water. The mirror on the wall was starting to steam up with the heat. I rubbed my hand across it to clear the view. When my tattoo caught my eye in the reflection I slowly traced the pattern with my finger and thought of her. I jumped out of my thoughts when I heard my mobile ring in the other room.

A familiar name flashed across the screen.

‘Hey…Yeah, I’m good…It went well…They all seem nice. Furniture is arriving Wednesday. How are you?…Take it a day at a time. That’s all you can do…OK…Friday it is. See you then.’

Fuck.

The sound of water overflowing pulled me out of my thoughts. I quickly turned off the taps before crouching down with my head in my hands. I needed to get myself together. I undressed and put my wet socks on the radiator, took one last look at myself in the mirror before deciding I could get away with another day without shaving, then got into the water.

The bath was so comfortable I considered sleeping there for the night, but then I remembered a news report where some woman from Doncaster had drowned after she’d fallen asleep in the bath when she got home from a nightshift. My life might be fucking terrible right now, but I wasn’t at the stage where I was fighting the urge to put my face under the water, putting the razors in high cupboards, or wrapping them in newspaper to save me from myself.

The warmth soothed the ache in my muscles and released the tension in my spine. I let my thoughts drift to the only woman that occupied them. Abi. Abi and her smart mouth. Abi and her matching underwear. Always matching. Abi on top of me, throwing her head back and rotating her hips as she was riding me.

I thought about sex with Abi a lot. It had been a big part of us. If I wasn’t inside her, I was thinking about being inside her. We were spontaneous and thrill seekers. She loved nothing more than when I surprised her, wrapping my arms around her waist as she was washing the pots at the sink, unbuttoning her jeans and pushing my hand inside her underwear.

She was the only woman I had been with who actually enjoyed sucking cock. For me, it had always been a treat on a special occasion, never an active part of a relationship. Abi sought it out, often meeting me at the door and dropping to her knees to suck the life out of me before I’d even removed my shoes.

It had been so long since anyone had sucked my cock I’d started to believe it was such an intimate act that I only ever wanted Abi’s lips drawn around it, her mouth loving me and swallowing everything I had to give her.

Fuck. The internal voices were coming at me loud and strong.

I’m going to need medication, the opposite of Viagra, because a permanent hard-on was going to be a problem in the office. Repositioning would become my best friend. I’ll have to put both hands in my pockets to avoid suspicious movements, hold on to it so I can tame my cock into a false sense of restraint. Fuck, it’s never been restrained.

As I got out of the bath, still thinking about Abi, I knocked over the empty beer cans I must have drank in my sexual memory fest. I stood with my hard cock in my hand, pumping harder and faster, twisting my hand like she used to do because she knew it drove me wild. She knew everything instinctively. I missed our connection so much I could taste it. I closed my eyes and imagined the bounce of her breasts as we fucked. I imagined the curve of her back as she arched on a moan. I imagined her foot resting on my shoulder as I shaved her legs in the bath. Yep, it was that deep. Even shaving her legs was part of foreplay for us.

I rested my elbow against the wall and continued the drive harder and faster—squeezing. Fucking hell.

I thought of Abi during every twisted second.