“Did we really just get kicked out of the wedding?” I laughed softly against Elodie’s lips.

She pulled back, her eyes slightly unfocused and her hair a tousled halo from where I’d been running my fingers through it. Her lips were already swollen from the fast and furious make-out session we’d been having in the back seat of the taxi.

“Bree wasn’t a fan of your singing, apparently.” She grinned, and I leant in to kiss her again, unable to get enough of her.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” I mumbled against her skin.

City lights flashed by in a blur outside the window as I let my lips trail off the side of her mouth, along her jaw to the spot beneath her ear. I watched in fascination as her head dropped back and her eyes closed. My cock thickened behind the fly of my suit pants. “Come home with me,” I whispered.

She moaned quietly as my tongue circled the shell of her ear. “I want to, but I shouldn’t.”

“Okay.” I paused and sat back. “Is this,” I motioned between us, “still alright, though?”

Her fingers snaked into my hair, pulling my head to her mouth. Her lips were hot and demanding, sending fire through my veins. Her breasts rubbed against my chest until I wanted to ease her down on the back seat and cover my body with hers—driver be damned.

“I’ve got to get Nathan in the morning.”

My fingers skated over her hip and up her ribcage, my thumb stopping just below the swell of her breast. “Okay.”

“We only just met.”

I pulled away, my lips hovering just over hers, and smiled gently. “It’s fine. Really.” I meant it. I’d had an amazing evening with her, and if this was as far as it went, that was more than okay with me. “You’ll be worth waiting for.”

“We’re here,” the driver announced with a glance in the rearview mirror. I’d expected him to be leering at us after we’d just spent fifteen minutes going to second base in the back seat of his car. But he looked thoroughly bored, as if he saw this sort of thing every night. Maybe he did.

My lips brushed over Elodie’s. “This is me. Are you sure you’re okay to go the rest of the way on your own?” I’d wanted the taxi driver to take her home first, but she’d refused, insisting her place was further and that she’d be fine alone. I handed the driver a few notes, making sure to give him more than enough to cover Elodie for the rest of her trip home.

She nodded and glanced over my shoulder at my townhouse. “Yeah, I’ll be…” She bit her bottom lip as her eyes locked with mine. My heart thumped, seemingly only to push lust through my veins. I wanted her with every ounce of my being, and despite respecting her boundaries, I was damn disappointed this was ending here. But I could wait as long as she wanted. I was a patient man, even when my cock was so hard I was surprised it hadn’t exploded into pieces.

“Oh, screw it.” Her lips slammed into mine again and my heart leapt. Did that mean…?

She pushed the door open and we tumbled out, a mess of limbs, neither of us wanting to break the kiss. I slammed the door behind me with my foot and found her hands, lacing my fingers between them as I walked her backwards up the path. “Are you sure?” I asked, breaking away to study her face as we tripped up the front steps. I rummaged through my pockets for the key.

She nodded, but then she bit her lip again. “You should know though…I’ve never been with anyone other than Rick.”

I paused. “No one?”

She shook her head. “High-school sweethearts, remember?”

“Okay,” I said slowly. I wanted this, but at the same time, this had to be huge for her. I rested my back on the door. I didn’t want to ruin it by rushing. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Just because you’re coming in, doesn’t mean I expect anything. We can just hang out. Watch Netflix…”

“And chill?”

A laugh rumbled through me. “Your call.” Opening the door, I led her in, not bothering to flick on the light. I hoped my roommate Mark was doing nightshift at the club he owned.

She tugged on my hand until I twisted back around. “Jamison?”

“Yes?”

“Chilling is good. I want to chill.”

I gathered her into my arms with a wicked grin and dropped a kiss on her upturned face. Then I led her up the stairs.

Elodie

My libido had taken over my head. What was I doing? Going home with some guy I’d only met a few hours before. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t an eighteen-year-old, picking men up in bars. Not that I’d ever actually done that, since I’d always had Rick around, but this didn’t fit the faithful mother and wife image I’d crafted over the last few years either.

Being a faithful wife wasn’t exactly all it was cracked up to be, though, was it? I’d had the perfect husband, but he’d turned out to be not so perfect after all. I was still mourning that loss. But Jamison was sweet and funny and handsome. He’d focused his sole attention on me. And I liked it. My stomach flip-flopped as I followed him up the narrow staircase of his two-story townhouse. But the lack of kissing gave me too much time to think.

Did he realise I was older than him? I’d guessed him to be around twenty-two, so I only had a few years on him, but still. I’d had a baby. I wasn’t ashamed of the stretch marks beneath my belly button, but would he find me attractive naked? Rick hadn’t been overly interested in sex with me for years, which I now attributed to him getting it from other sources, but his lack of interest hadn’t been great for my body confidence either. I tried to keep myself fit so I could keep up with Nathan, but there was nothing I could do about the stretch marks. They were just part of who I was.

“Oh good, they’re not here,” Jamison said, as we passed a darkened bedroom. My stomach dropped.

“They?” Please, Lord, don’t let him live with his parents. I would die a thousand deaths if he’d brought me back to his parent’s place.

Jamison stopped in the doorway of the other bedroom across the hall and pulled me into his arms. I welcomed the opportunity to explore the hard planes of his body, letting my hands roam his back and untucking his shirt from his suit pants as I went. His eyes twinkled with mischief, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “My roommate and his partner. Mark owns a nightclub, so he works weird hours. But it’s Saturday, so he probably won’t be home until three or four a.m.”

Relief loosened the tightness in my muscles. I’d be long gone by three a.m.

“So,” Jamison said, “This is my room…” He let go of me to flick on a lamp and I peered into his space. It was tidy. A neatly made double bed sat in the middle of the room with a navy-blue quilt covering it. A Star Wars poster hung above it, and a desk in the corner of the room was covered in a pile of law textbooks. It was the only thing in the room that wasn’t neatly aligned.

Jamison hovered around the bed looking indecisive, and I wasn’t sure what to do next either. I suddenly felt a whole lot more sober than I had in the back of the taxi. I walked over to his desk and trailed my fingers over his books before glancing over at him. “You’re a law student?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed as he nodded. “I’m just about done. I took a year off to travel after high school, otherwise I’d be finished by now.”

“That’s great.”

“What about you?”

I shook my head. “I always wanted to go to Uni. I even considered doing law as well. But we got married as soon as we turned eighteen, and then I fell pregnant with Nathan almost right away. I found a job I love though, so it all worked out in the end.”

“So, that makes you, what? Twenty-four?”

“Twenty-five.”

A smile spread across his face. “Cougar.”

I laughed. I liked the way he teased. He hadn’t once made me uncomfortable. Everything about him seemed good-natured and jovial. Even when we’d spoken about Bree and Rick, his mocking had never felt malicious. We probably shouldn’t have made out in front of them, though. That was bad form, and I’d apologise to Rick next time I saw him. He’d expect it. And he was easier to deal with when he wasn’t in a mood.

“You can’t be that much younger than me if you’ve nearly finished your law degree.”

He shook his head and patted the bed beside him. I crossed the room and perched on the edge of the mattress. “I’m not. I’m twenty-three.”

Older than I’d guessed. That was good. “So, nice room…”

“Thanks.”

God. Was sex with a random stranger always this awkward? We’d had no problems talking all evening and we’d been all over each other on the way here, but now I seemed to have nothing interesting to add to the conversation.

Silence. I could literally hear crickets outside the window. Maybe I should just leave? But when did I ever get to do this sort of thing? When did I ever get to be young and a little bit reckless? I was always somebody’s wife, somebody’s mum, somebody’s employee. When did I ever just get to be me? I eyed the door, but when I glanced back at him, our eyes locked.

“I’m sorry, this is weird, isn’t it?” he asked with a self-depreciating chuckle.

I let out a breath. “No, it’s me. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t either. But I really want to kiss you again. Is that okay?”

My insides turned to mush. Rick had never once asked so politely if he could kiss me. I nodded. Jamison inched forward on the bed, leaning his long torso in until his breath warmed my skin. His lips met mine, soft and sweet, sending tingles across my mouth. He cupped one cheek in his large hand, his fingers resting gently just below my ear as he kissed me, until his lips parted and he deepened the kiss. I relaxed into his touch, feeling some of the awkward tension between us evaporate. We kissed soft and slow for a long time before his hands snaked around my back and found the zipper on my dress. My stomach flipped, but this time it was fuelled by excitement, not nerves.

His fingertips brushed my spine as he dragged the zipper down. I tilted my head to the side, tucking my hair behind my ear as he slipped his hand beneath the strap of my dress and pushed it over one shoulder. I shivered as he took his time, kissing every inch of skin. His kisses moved across my shoulder, and he pushed the strap of my bra in the same direction the dress had fallen a moment earlier.

My hands trailed up his chest, pulling at his white collared shirt as I went, untucking it from the front of his pants as I’d done to the back earlier. I opened my eyes to find the buttons on his shirt, and undid them swiftly, pushing aside the material. A lick of delicious heat seared through me as I took in his chest and abs. He wasn’t built like a man that spent hours in a gym, but he was long and lean with a dusting of freckles across his tan chest. I leant forward and kissed one experimentally, feeling the hard muscle underneath my lips. He obviously did some sort of exercise regularly, and I drank him in, committing his form to memory for when I’d no doubt want to replay this moment in my head later.

Goosebumps travelled over me as he unhooked the clasp at my back letting my breasts fall free. The room wasn’t well lit by the lamp, but it was far from dark. Was he happy with what he saw? I’d only ever been this naked with one other man, and doubts began to crowd my thoughts. But he kissed me again, before taking both breasts in his hands, his thumbs flicking over the nipples. I hissed as pleasure shot straight to my core, and he pushed me gently toward the mattress.

“Jamison…”

His lips skated over my collarbone, trailing feather-light kisses across my skin until I was flat on my back. His tongue circled my nipple and my toes curled as his big body pressed me into the mattress. His tongue flicked over the tip, eliciting a gasp from me, and his palms skated down my sides, pushing my dress down as he went.

“Yes?” he mumbled, finally breaking away from skin long enough to answer. I pushed his shirt off his arms, enjoying the way his biceps flexed as he shifted his weight to drop the shirt on the floor. His mouth immediately returned to my breasts.

“Nothing,” I mumbled as he sucked me into his mouth. Jesus Christ. I could feel wetness pooling between my thighs. Every swipe of his tongue reinforced the gut instinct that told me this would be different. That he was different. And that I’d forgotten what it felt like to have a man take his time with me.

Jamison

My cock was so hard I was probably stabbing a hole in Elodie’s leg. But fuck. Elodie in her near-naked glory had heat licking straight south. For a few awkward moments I’d thought she’d leave, but as soon as we’d started kissing again, everything had gone back to feeling right. And now I had her writhing beneath me and I’d barely even touched her. Her body became more responsive with every inch of her I explored.

I dragged my tongue down the underside of her breast and placed open-mouthed kisses across the gentle swell of her stomach. She tensed as I reached her belly button, and I lifted my head searching out her eyes. “You still okay?”

She propped herself up on her elbow. Which gave me a great view of her tits. Perky with the nipples shiny and erect from my mouth. My dick throbbed for attention, but I ignored it, more concerned with why she’d suddenly frozen up.

“Yeah, I just…my stomach is all scarred.” I looked down. I couldn’t see any scars in the dim light, but I ran my fingers over the softness above her underwear and felt the change in the skin.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, frowning.

“No, not at all. They’re old. From when I was pregnant with Nathan.”

I crawled back up her body, and pressed my lips to hers, pushing her back down on the bed. “Then what’s the problem?”

She shrugged and turned her cheek into the pillow.

I dropped my nose to her neck and ran it up to her ear, before whispering, “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever had in my bed, Elodie. I don’t give a shit about your scars.”

That little smile I was beginning to associate with her reappeared and I slid back down her torso, determined to show her exactly how perfect I thought her body was, scars and all. My tongue found the groove of her hip bones and traced a path up and down each and every stretch mark, delighting in the way her muscles bunched and tensed beneath me. Her thighs fell apart slightly, and I took that as a sign she wanted more. I ran my fingers under the elastic of her underwear, teasingly slow, before slipping it down her legs. She lifted her head again to watch as I settled between her thighs. And fuck. I nearly came, just knowing her eyes would be on me as I went down on her.

My tongue darted out to run through her folds and I held back a chuckle as her head dropped back into the pillows. I circled her clit for a long, luxurious moment before I quit messing around and sucked her tiny bud between my lips. Her back arched and her fingers threaded through my hair as a moan escaped her. The gentle pressure on the back of my head urged me on. I added a finger to my attentions on her pussy, sliding it through her wetness then up inside her.

“Ah, just—” She twisted slightly beneath me, her face pained.

“Shit, sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“It’s just…a weird angle.” Then she giggled. “Not exactly like the movies, huh?”

I moved my fingers slightly, angling my wrist up and her frown smoothed out as she relaxed back into the bed. “More like the movies now?” It probably came out sounding slick, but I honestly wanted to know.

A sigh floated across the space between us as I went back to stroking her with my tongue. I’d take that as an affirmative. I watched the way she moved and listened to the sounds she made, a desperate need to get her off spurring me on. Some primal, caveman-like instinct in me wanted to make her come harder than Rick ever had. Make her forget that Rick even existed. I added another slick finger, and her hips began to move. Following her cues, I pumped my fingers in and out, in time with her movements. The little sounds she was making made my balls ache with the need to get inside her, but nothing was more important in that moment than her.

She groaned, but I didn’t let up until her thighs constricted around my head and her walls clenched in on my fingers. Her breath came in pants as her body shuddered, her pussy clenching again, before she went still. Then her head popped up, a smile lighting up her face.

“Uh, thanks?” She laughed.

I grinned as I sat up, my dick throbbing at the sight of her naked, post-orgasm blushed body. That manly pride that always appeared whenever you made your woman come coursed through me. She grasped my zipper and I reached across her, grabbing a condom from the drawer beside my bed.

She tugged, but the zipper caught, and her big green eyes looked up at me. “You’re going to have to stand up to get these off.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” I leapt up wrenching my fly the rest of the way down and let my suit pants fall to the ground. She wriggled to the side of the bed and pushed my boxer briefs down my legs. Her mouth hovered near the tip of my dick and damn if it wasn’t the sexiest she’d looked yet. Her tongue darted out and licked the wetness from the tip before pulling back and taking the condom from my hand. Her fingers stroked me, making my legs tremble before she rolled the latex over my length.

Shifting back up the bed, she looked much more comfortable with her nakedness now that I was on display too. Or maybe she was still feeling the aftereffects of her orgasm. Either way, her actions welcomed me to her, and I went eagerly. Lining up the tip of my cock with her entrance, I found her lips with my own. I pressed my lips to hers, hard and demanding. “You still want to chill?”

She groaned, and I wondered if it was because of my pathetic joke or the fact that my dick was nudging inside of her. It sounded like a little of both, and I didn’t know her well enough yet to know one way or the other. But then she pulled me down on top of her, so we were skin on skin and I forgot all about my dumb one-liners. The tip of my cock slipped inside her with the movement, and I braced myself on my forearms to take some of my weight off her. Her hips thrust to meet mine and my cock disappeared into her, nearly overwhelming me with the tight, wet heat of her.

Elodie whispered in my ear, “What do you think?”