It wasn’t unusual to have to squeeze in two more hours on the end of an already long shift at the clinic. But the minutes crept by even more slowly when I knew that someone was waiting at home for me. By the time I had signed off and was driving home, I was already succumbing to that familiar high I got when I was alone and could daydream about him for a moment.

Should I have just given him a house key so he could let himself and the kids into the house? It felt weird that he was essentially squatting on the front lawn with them right now, but it would feel even more weird to let him into my house. Alone. At night. I didn’t like to think of what it meant, but as I drove on in silence, I realized I couldn’t avoid inviting him inside forever. I had shown him an outrageously slutty picture of me, true, but that didn’t seem quite as real as the prospect of him and his larger-than-life abs just there, in my living room. I was the uh, responsible adult in this situation, and I still wasn’t quite sure if I was willing to play the part of wanton MILF. I’d never dated anyone younger than me. And I had certainly never seduced anyone before, either.

I pulled up and parked the car, spying the dull green of the new tent in the yard. How had I ever juggled these ridiculous shifts and my horde of flaky babysitters before David came along?

It was quiet outside and the chill night air picked up and played with a few strands of my hair as I crept over to the tent. I could feel the cold dew seeping through my nurse shoes as I crouched down at the entrance, quietly pulled the zip and peeped inside. In the darkness, my eyes adjusted to see a lump of indistinct shapes – they were sleeping soundly. I zipped back up again, satisfied that I had thankfully made it through another day without winning the worst mother of the year award.

Something brushed against my hip and I shrieked. In a heartbeat, a heavy hand came to my mouth and squeezed it shut. My entire body jolted in fear but in the next moment I was spun around and saw his handsome, goofy face smiling back at me. I slapped his chest, hard.

“You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack!” I whispered loudly. He smiled at me in the semi-darkness.

“Sorry! I didn’t want you to wake them up”

Fuck he had a gorgeous voice.

“You’re like, a ninja, sneaking up on me like that!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” he said, still grinning. “They used to call me twinkle toes.” He was like the world’s sexiest Cheshire cat.

“Jesus, I can see why,” I said, and turned towards the house. He followed behind me, stealthy as a panther. “I’m sorry I’m late by the way.”

“Don’t worry about it. Actually, I was really enjoying the stars. It’s kinda beautiful out here.”

I looked up and for a split second, realized that he was staring at my collarbones. Our eyes glanced against one another and then quickly away again. In the darkness, he seemed more perfectly in his element. He was wearing a bulky utility jacket and big boots and an army green knit cap that made me think of guerilla warfare in some tropical jungle. He was hot as hell.

“Let’s …go inside,” I said, and he followed after me as I fished my keys from my bag. I still felt electrified on the place he had touched me. It had been only the tiniest touch to the side of my waist, only a few split seconds long, but it was so distracting he might as well have branded me with a hot iron. He was… surprisingly strong. It took my breath away how swiftly he took charge of my body, held closed my mouth and all before I had even realized he was there. It was impressive. A little scary, but impressive.

We walked into the house, my mind carried away with wondering what other transferrable Navy skills he had. I don’t know how he could look so calm and collected when I was being eaten alive from the inside by the butterflies in my stomach, but he smiled sweetly and nodded when I offered him a mug of cocoa. God, I was such a mom, wasn’t I? I decided not to spoil the mood by offering him tiny colored marshmallows to sprinkle on top. I handed him his mug as he perched on the arm of the sofa, long legs outstretched, looking too large for my house altogether.

“Thank you so much for doing this, David, I owe you one, really,” I said, and proceeded to nervously burn my lips on the hot brown liquid. He smiled warmly at me.

“You know, Ally, you don’t have to keep thanking me over and over. I told you I’m happy to do this. It’s all part of the program.”

I perched on the opposite arm of the couch, leaving the soft, cushioned area in the middle completely free. I think I’d lose my mind if I had to sit up close to him right now. But sitting chaste and distant like this …that only seemed make the moment feel even more dangerously sexy.

“Yeah, you’re right, sorry. It’s just that most men get pretty uncomfortable taking care of kids…”

“Well, I’m not most men,” he said and gave me a big cheesy wink that instantly melted the tension in the room. God, he was smooth. I felt so tightly wound next to him, like one glance of his sizzling gaze just melted me from the inside out. I was exhausted from my shift, but having him so close made me forget all about that…

“Just kidding,” he laughed. “It’s probably just because I’m a big kid myself. Maybe that’s why I get on so well with them.”

I thought about this for a moment. The kids really did seem to like him. A lot. Why did they have to latch onto a guy that was so disturbingly young and immature though? Our polite laughter petered out and it was soon silent again, and we both stared down casually at the empty space between us, steaming mugs in hand.

“It’s late,” I said, just to relieve myself of the tension of the moment.

He checked his watch and I did the same.

“Oh… it’s… ten,” I said, and all at once remembered our text chat the day before. He caught my eye and seemed to read my mind.

“Looks like we missed the 9pm deadline,” I said with a nervous giggle. His eyes flashed like there was fire in them. Maybe he’d go home now and we’d both forget the whole thing.

“Well…” he said slowly. “I’m here in person now, so maybe there’s no need for a picture anymore?”

I heard myself gulp.

I had spent the last few years detached from everything that happened from my neck down. I was a trained nurse, but my specialty was other people’s bodies… when it came to my own, I was completely at a loss to describe the strange feelings washing over me just then. I wasn’t just turned on. The warmth glowing somewhere deep inside me was heavily tinged with …fear. A delicious fear. Like the dreadful excitement you feel when you’re hiding away and the person looking for you is just inches from discovering you. Like the wonderfully stomach-churning sensation of reaching the highest point on a rollercoaster and knowing full well what’s coming. Like flying so high up on a swing you feel for just a few sweet seconds that you’re weightless and will never come back to earth again...

I couldn’t avoid his gaze this time, and when our eyes made contact again I let them. I searched his face. In that second he had stepped forward, clinked his mug onto the side table and moved in close towards me. Before I could say anything, his lips were on mine, and they tasted as sweet and warm as chocolate and I couldn’t help but gasp and open my mouth to his.

It only took one moment of submission for a whole sexy string of dominoes to fall, one after the other. I didn’t know how I landed with my back on the sofa, I didn’t know how he ended up on top of me, but we soon tumbled into one another, nothing but hands and lips and desperate gasping.

“David… David, I…”

“Shhh…” he said and buried his warm breath into my neck, kissing me ferociously all down onto my shoulder blades, my chest… He was heavy and strong and completely overwhelming, and when I felt the stiffness in his pants press mercilessly into my thigh, something blotted out in my mind and all I wanted to do was release and let him do what he wanted with me…

“How can your skin be this soft…” he breathed hot against my belly now as he peeled the hem of my shirt up and began planting heavy kisses there. A deep, almost painful kick of pleasure radiated out from my pussy and made me utterly limp underneath his hard body. I writhed and tilted my hips upwards, turned my face to hide in my hair and let my hands wander where they wanted… it didn’t matter, since every part of him they touched was taut with muscles. The scent of his skin was driving me wild.

Oh fuck. This was it. It was actually happening and it was faster and sexier and …messier than I had imagined it.

He finally pulled his lips from their job of devouring by belly and when he came upright for a moment to peel off his shirt, I nearly gasped out loud at the sight of his chest. He was built like a wrestler from a Roman fresco, young and hard and, to my delight, prickled up with a wash of goosebumps over his tanned, tattooed skin. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. With his powerful thighs straddling me, and with me crumpled between his knees, flopped on the sofa like I was under a spell, we took a moment to catch our breath and look at one another.

I reached out my hand and touched his knee, and then carefully, slowly dragged it higher until it was just touching the obvious bulge in his pants. I saw him swallow and clench his jaw as he held eye contact with me. Here was a hot, virile stud with a body that looked positively built for fighting and fucking, and by some miracle I had him all to myself.

Eyes still locked together, my trembling hands stroked the thick hard rod under the fabric of his pants. The tight V on his abdomen disappeared into those pants like they were showing me precisely where to go. Matching my slowness, he leaned back, abs tightening, and began to unbutton them. His eyes fluttered closed as I stroked him and he zoned out. I could feel him twitch against my hand as he grew stiffer.

A hot, sticky pool of anticipation was growing inside me. I had soaked right through my panties. It felt like he’d only need to gently graze the edge of his thumb against that soaked scrap of fabric to make me lose my fucking mind. I was so desperate for that touch, in fact, that I was involuntarily writhing my hips up towards him, wanting the naked bulge of his cock to touch me where I wanted it most…

He opened his eyes for a moment, and then his fingers froze on his zip. His face changed.

“Hey Ally… what’s that?” he said, and I followed his eyes to the bookshelf behind me. I twisted round underneath him to try and find out what was perplexing him, but I couldn’t see over my shoulder. He awkwardly stepped off me and leaned in closer to the shelf, then recoiled with a frown. He pointed to a large, yellow book. I sat up and quickly pulled my shirt back down again.

“Mein Kampf? Holy fuck. And… this?” he said, and went for one of the books beside it, examining it like it was literal poison.

I groaned.

“Oh, shit. Yeah. David, don’t mind that, it’s just junk from… another life,” I said quickly, my head still spinning from how quickly we had gone from hot and heavy to cold and strange.

He put the book back on the shelf and shook his head as he looked at the other titles. I hadn’t done more than dust those shelves for years, but I knew what was on them. Pulpy self-published relics with bizarre cover pictures of either Hitler or rough looking bearded men in camo. A copy of The Turner Diaries. The infamous A Righteous Pride by well-known white nationalist and second amendment fanatic Bruce Gartman. Some preparedness manuals for the inevitable race war… I guess it did look kind of bad.

“Those aren’t mine,” I said, flustered.

“Then whose are they?”

He had done a 180. Though he was still shirtless and the top button of his trousers was undone and open, he suddenly seemed angry as hell. I didn’t like his tone. Not one bit. I sat up and pulled a cushion to my lap to hug close.

“Does it matter?” I said slowly.

His hand was clutching the back of his neck now and I could see the cogs turning behind his eyes. What was I going to say? I couldn’t get rid of Andrew’s crap because, to be frank, I didn’t know what to do with it all. I would be mortified if anyone knew I had such an embarrassing collection of books; it wasn’t something I could just casually leave in the recycling bin. He was pacing tight circles round the room now, looking deeply upset.

“Ally, you know that I’m Jewish, right?”

My face fell.

“David …shit, no, I didn’t…”

“The name didn’t give it away? David Segal? What about my big, honking nose then, didn’t that clue you in?”

My blood went cold in my veins. He was that kind of quiet, scary angry that I’d hoped to god I’d ever have to encounter again. For the second time that evening, I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was afraid. And then I was angry myself.

“Look, David, I told you already, they’re not mine, ok? They’re just books. And come on, do I look like the kind of person to read shit like that?”

He stared at me so hard I felt like his eyes could bore holes through my skin.

“If you must know, they belonged to my ex,” I said, staring at the floor.

“Ally… who the hell was your ex?”

Who was he? How could I ever explain? Nobody in my family really knew how bad it got with Andrew. None of my friends had an inkling either. By the time I knew who he really was, it was too late. I was too ashamed to admit that I had fallen for any of his tricks, that I had anything to do with him in the first place. When the police and FBI started accosting me I got scared. I was young. Fuck, I didn’t know. I guess I just put my hands over my ears and pretended no one of it was happening. I had two kids to care for, after all.

“Well, who was he?”

“Just some idiot,” I whispered.

He pulled one book off the shelf and flipped through it in disbelief.

“These are bad people, Ally, and this is some dangerous shit… do you have any idea what this is?”

“Ok, of course I know what it is,” I snapped. “It’s just bullshit, that’s what it is. I was just keeping them because… well I don’t know why. It doesn’t mean anything. I told you, they belonged to my ex.”

“So, you married a man who reads books by an active member of a hate group and who is on every terrorist watchlist in the country?” he said and held up a thin, dog eared book.

I didn’t know what to say. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

“Well, fine, I guess I did. So sue me. I was 19 when I met him. It was a mistake, clearly. Can we just drop the topic?”

“He’s Ben and Alex’s father, isn’t he?”

I was silent.

“I’m sorry, David, is this some kind of deal breaker?” I was genuinely shocked at how angry he was right now, when just a few moments earlier he had been showering me in passionate kisses.

“Deal breaker? Ally, let’s just …let’s just slow down here for a second. I don’t know, I’m just shocked that’s all. Do you have any idea how serious this kind of thing is?”

Now I was getting angry myself. Did I have any idea? I laughed cynically.

“Well, I divorced him, didn’t I?” was all I could say.

Here he gave me a sad look. I knew that this was a pretty unflattering discovery to make, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was overreacting.

“Yeah, I know, but …you married him in the first place. People like this are outright bigots, Ally. How could you have ever been attracted to a crazy nationalist who was—”

“Well, I’m still attracted to them!” I said.

“What?”

I tucked my legs underneath me on the sofa and withered a little as he stared at me. Who did he think he was, to judge me?

“Well, what are you except a crazy nationalist?”

He frowned deeply at me.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” I said. One part of me was petrified to see how angry I was making him. But another part of me wanted to see just how far I could push him. My days of cowering in front of angry men who wanted me to shut up were long gone.

“Ally, I am a United States Navy SEAL and I’m bound to protect and honor my country, I’m a sworn elite—”

“My ex was an asshole, sure, but as far as I can see, he wasn’t doing anything that different from every other fucking macho man in this world. Protect and honor his country? That’s exactly what he would have said. Do I really care who the bad guys are supposed to be? Jesus, I’m so exhausted trying to keep track of it all. It’s all the same – idiotic men with big weapons and small brains. I’m so sorry I didn’t divorce him fast enough for you.”

The look on his face was priceless.

“Ally…”

“I don’t care, if you want to go, just go,” I said, the tears burning my bottom lashes like they were acid I was trying to hold in. I don’t know what had come over me, but in my little speech my loose hair had come flopping in front of my face. I must have looked like a mad woman. When he stood and made his way towards me, I was confronted all over again with the tanned wall of muscles that was his chest.

Fuck him.

Fuck him for making me feel bad.

I survived Andrew, and if he didn’t like that I had made some stupid mistakes in my life, then he could just forget about me and my boys and leave. I couldn’t decipher the look on his face. His tattoos rose and fell as he breathed deeply. He saw me looking at the concealed scars on his bicep, and we exchanged loaded glances.

“Ally…” he said again.

I was angry. He was angry. But something about seeing him fired up like that; something about feeling so fired up myself… it was like we were already naked. Even more than naked. When he rushed over to the sofa again I was waiting for him, but this time there was no melting, no collapsing. I gripped him hard and dug my nails into his back, and when he kissed me he did it so forcefully it almost hurt.

“Fuck, you drive me crazy, you know that?” he mumbled as we fell into a deep, urgent kiss. His hands were rough over me as he pulled at my clothing, and I pushed back, biting his lower lip and pressing into him, daring him to do something about already it if I drive him so crazy. The side lamp came crashing to the floor as he slammed my hip into the side table and knocked it over. I staggered back onto the sofa again, hair flying as he pulled my scrubs up over my head and started to roughly peel off my slacks.

He moved so swiftly and with such ruthless violence it was almost frightening. He was stronger than he looked …and he looked damn strong. Before I knew it, my scrubs were completely off and I was down to my underwear. It was certainly nothing like the lacy black number I had worn in the picture, but he didn’t blink twice and ripped this off me just as quickly. Soon the full, hot weight of his naked body was against mine, skin against skin, our mouths locked in a desperate kiss and his hands seemingly everywhere. I gripped his broad, muscled shoulders for dear life and writhed hard against him, feeling my anger at him remain but morph somehow into raw lust.

“You think you’re so fucking big and strong, huh?” I hissed into his ear as he pinned me down. It was half threat, half encouragement. I could feel his red-hot cock poking hard into the flesh of my belly as he growled in response, grabbed my wrists and pinned them hard above my head.

“You’re gonna regret provoking me like this,” he said in a dark, low voice. My body curled up and writhed into him as he said it.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” I said and dug my hips against his.

“Fuck,” he said as his shaft slid wet against my pussy and he felt how wildly turned on I was.

He was hurting my wrists badly. The weight of his body on top of me was too much. But I didn’t care. We locked eyes and I stared back at him defiantly, daring him to fuck me already.

“You like messing around with dangerous men, huh?” His face was flushed and twisted as he looked down at me, helpless to do anything but squirm as he held me. He gripped both my wrists with a single hand and held them there firmly, despite my wriggling. With his other hand he pulled my legs apart wide and wedged himself there, laying his thick cock against the wet slit of my pussy like he was claiming it. His gestures were those of something untamed, uncivilized. Good. Maybe I wanted him to teach me a lesson.

“And are you a dangerous man, David?” I said in a mocking, sing-song tone as I lifted my head to bring my lips just an inch from his. I hovered there and teased him with my breath, but he didn’t kiss me. Instead we sized one another up like animals.

“Oh, I’m more than that, honey. The scum who reads shit like that? It would be my fucking pleasure to tear his face off,” he growled and pressed his cock teasingly against my drenched clit. It made me ache to see him so mad. I couldn’t describe it. He was insulting the father of my children, and yet I couldn’t decide whether I was furious or just furiously turned on.

“Oh? I think he’d say the same about you,” I said, but before I could finish, the head of his cock popped inside me and the rush was so intense I couldn’t speak. We froze together and he looked down at my face, relishing my reaction. He was big enough to hurt a little, and he smiled with a devilish pleasure at this fact. I swallowed, held his gaze and braced myself.

He plunged forward to kiss me and sunk the rest of that swollen shaft deep into me. My gasps disappeared in his mouth as inch after inch pushed inside. I felt my body twinkle awake inside like it was electrified with millions of little lights, every one of them caressed by his thick girth. I opened my legs wide to him and soon he was bringing his hips down hard against mine, delivering the full, thick length of him into me with each stroke, completely taking my breath away.

“David… David…”

“Shut up,” he growled and kissed me hard again. My arms were going numb. I had no idea where my feet were. All I could feel was the delicious sensation of being completely dominated by that glorious cock of his, having it slide all the way into and all the way out of me again. He wasn’t tender. He fucked me like owned me. When he began to pick up pace, I rode along with him, happy for him to just take me, since it was so clear that he could.

He wasn’t who I thought he was. He wasn’t a goofy, unintelligent military buffoon with unprofessional tattoos. He wasn’t young and inexperienced. In fact, as his skillful body moved against and into mine over and over again, I was overwhelmed by his mastery. Every movement was controlled and powerful, every breath deep and full, and when I cried out, he only pumped in deeper and held me down harder. I soon felt myself wobbling up against the delicious edge of an orgasm.

He felt me tighten against him. I felt his wicked smile as his lips played against my flushed neck, against my cheek…

“David…” I whimpered, but he didn’t slow down. He bounded ahead, spirited as a race horse, and all at once I couldn’t hold any longer. I grabbed him tight and screamed inside as a quick, vicious little orgasm ripped through me. I came hard with him still inside me and then, to my amazement, I quivered inside and felt myself already inching up to another one.

His hips were pounding against me brutally now, till pain and pleasure melted all into one dirty mess. When his body shook and his face softened, I knew he was close to coming. I grabbed his ass and pulled him deep inside me then let go, coming all over his cock again, and as I bucked and writhed against him he cried out himself and came too, with one final, sharp thrust, sending cum deep into that secret place…

I had the hugest headache. He slid out, wincing, and hurriedly grabbed his shirt, throwing it on before I had even sat up properly. It had been a brief, angry fuck but we were both glowing from the first cold prickles of sweat. His face was red and his chest heaving. But he was frowning. I watched in surprise as he dressed clumsily, avoiding eye contact. I could still feel him.

“David…”

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, that was a bad idea,” he mumbled.

“What?”

He was standing now and the look on his face made me feel like shit. We were both panting like we’d just been sprinting.

“That… shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I’m sorry I got angry with you, I just…” He glanced over at the bookcase and then at me again, with that same inscrutable facial expression. I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, I was still a little angry at him.

“Can you just sit down with me for a second?” I said and gestured to the space on the sofa next to me. He shook his head.

“I should go.”

A chill passed over me. I felt sick. I had just had two firecracker orgasms so hard and so quick I was actually lightheaded. The whole encounter couldn’t have lasted longer than a minute. I was flabbergasted.

“Well, then just go,” I said, not quite sure how I felt about any of this.

He gave me a strange look.

“I’m sorry. What just happened…”

I turned away from him and his voice trailed off. I heard the zip of his pants and then in a moment he had left and shut the door behind him.

What the fuck just happened?

I sat there frozen and listened to his car engine start up and become more and more distant. I reached over and grazed my fingertips against the mug of cocoa, then tried to take a sip. It was still too hot to drink.