Chapter 2
Amber
“Ready for this?”
I stared up at the one man that I have truly wanted more than anything in my entire life. It sounded like an exaggeration, even to my own ears, but it was the truth. I had wanted Gage Devlin since I was fifteen years old and on the cusp of being a full-grown teenager. Back then, I had restrained myself from even acting out on those type of urges that I felt for Gage. Crushing on an older man wasn’t a cool thing by any standards, but those days were long gone.
I was twenty-five years old. I had a three-year old son that I loved more than life itself. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, even if I knew it was wrong. Except, it felt right to be laying there in the middle of Gage’s comfortable bed in a sea of blankets and pillows.
He was stretched halfway over me, deliciously naked as he looked down at me for permission. The heat between my thighs was the answer. I could feel the wetness soaking through the fabric of my underwear and leggings. All I wanted was that rock-hard cock buried deep inside of me.
I didn’t care if Gage was my dad’s best friend, or that he was twice my age. I wanted this man more than anything. His hands had already elicited delicious feelings inside of me within the short few minutes since Gage had finally caved in to what he wanted. And that gave me more pleasure, knowing that Gage wanted me. He craved me. I could feel his erection straining against my thigh.
“Yes,” I said, nodding at him. “I’m ready.”
The corner of Gage’s lips quirked up. He leaned down to press his lips against mine, and I was lost again in the sensation of our tongues touching. It felt so good. Too damn good. Gage overwhelmed me in every sense as he gently pushed my legs apart to move in between them. His lips tore away from mine to trail kisses again down the column of my neck.
My heart raced as those sinful lips traced the edge of my collarbone before trailing down further. I arched up in pleasure when his hands reached up to grasp both my breasts firmly. He worked the flesh there expertly until I was breathless and squirming, but it didn’t stop there. His lips trailed down the curve of my right breast before gently sucking in a nipple that begged to be touched.
“Oh, god,” I groaned, threading my fingers through his hair. “Please, Gage. Don’t draw this out even more.”
“You teased me,” he murmured against my breast. “It’s payback.”
His lips continued down past my belly button. I didn’t hesitate to lift my hips when he hooked his fingers into the bands of my leggings and underwear. He tugged the both of them down my legs smoothly, tossing them into the dark abyss surrounding the bed. The heater kicked on again. I could feel the blast of warm heat entering the room, but quickly realized it was me.
Heat radiated off my flushed skin as Gage’s hands smoothed down the inside of my thighs. The tips of his thumbs brushed against the apex of my thighs. I jerked at the feathery touch, propping myself up on my elbows to stare down at him through heavy breaths. He grinned up at me from his kneeling position between my bent knees. We were both naked, hot, and ready for this to go on. Yet, Gage was hell-bent on dragging it out even more.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Realization shot through me when Gage grinned devilishly at me. He slowly flattened down to lay on his stomach. Hot breath puffed against the core of me. Alarm skittered through me at the boldness. This was intimate, almost too intimate for the first time. I reached down with the intention to stop him, but the first brush of his tongue chased away any lingering hesitation.
His mouth sucked and licked expertly against the bundle of nerves between my legs. My heavy breaths turned into pants as I tried desperately to cling to reality, but all I could feel was Gage between my legs steadily working me toward release. Higher and higher I soared with my fingers clutching the bed sheets in a death grip. An orgasm spiraled down on me, leaving me a hot and quivering mess with Gage chuckling.
“Wow,” I breathed out, heart pounding. “You’re a pro at that. It didn’t take you long.”
“Years of foreplay, dear,” he returned with a rogue wink. “How do you feel?”
“Amazing. I feel amazing.”
The tip of Gage’s cock brushed against the slickness between my thighs. A shiver shot up my spine as Gage settled against me intimately, with our chests pressed against one another. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and brought my knees up to his hips as anticipation spiraled through me.
Gage buried his head against the side of my neck when he pushed forward to enter me. I clenched my teeth at the sting of it at first. It had been a long time since I’d last enjoyed this, but the stinging sensation gave away when his hips rolled back to thrust deep. An entirely different sensation built in my stomach as Gage’s body writhed against mine. He set a fast and deep pace. His panting was ragged against my neck. Every inch of his body was stiff with a pending release.
I was helpless against the onslaught of it, but in the best way possible. All I could do was bury my fingers into his shoulders and wrap my legs around his waist tightly to bring him closer and deeper. Our sweat slicked skin smacked against one another’s. I could dimly hear the bedframe shaking through our pants and groans.
Pleasure was building again. I squirmed against it while Gage’s hands planted themselves firmly in the mattress next to my head. Sweat beaded along his forehead. His eyes were closed in pleasure, and it was the most incredibly erotic thing to watch every flicker of emotion and sensation go across his face. His eyes jerked open suddenly.
“Amber—”
“I know,” I moaned out, lost in it as well. “I feel it, Gage. Keep going. Don’t stop.”
He gritted his teeth while picking up the pace even more. My world went black with searing heat as another orgasm bubbled in my stomach before popping. I stifled my cries of pleasure against Gage’s shoulder while I felt his body go stiff against mine before he released. I felt the warmth of it inside of me as he sank against me with a relieved groan. He pulled out a second later before collapsing on the bed next to me.
My heart refused to stop pounding. I stared up at the dark ceiling, sucking in deep breaths while the sweat on my skin cooled. My body still thrummed with the lasting afterglow of two amazing orgasms. I reached up to wipe my head in disbelief. Two in a row. I couldn’t even do that with my own hand.
I could feel Gage laying in the dark next to me, trying to catch his breath, too. Our arms brushed when I reached for his hand in the dark. I wanted to say something before the glow went away, but a blood-curdling and terrified scream from downstairs startled the both of us.
“Mom!”
“Ethan,” I gasped, jumping off the bed quickly. Panic roared through me at his terrified cries.
I frantically searched the floor for my clothes, pulling on my leggings without any underwear. I found my shirt a second later, jamming it over my head as I ran out, with Gage pulling on his clothes behind me. The entire bottom half of the house was dark. The candles had gone out, but I could see Ethan’s tiny body standing in the middle of the living room with his blanket clutched tightly to him.
Wrapping my arms around his quivering shoulders, I turned Ethan to pull him into me. His body trembled against mine. I could see the watery surface of tears in his fright-stricken eyes in the dark.
Nightmares. I knew it the second I had heard those screams from upstairs. Ethan wrapped his arms around my neck, burrowing against me for safety. I kneeled there on the cold hardwood floors while his little body trembled against mine.
“What’s going on?”
I turned to look over at Lily, standing near the edge of the couch. Her eyes were wide with fright and confusion as she gazed at Ethan.
“Just a dream,” I told her. “It’s okay, Lily. Sometimes he has bad dreams.”
“About what?” Lily asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said, even though I knew. Those same dreams plagued me, too, at times. There were times that I woke up drenched in sweat with Scott’s scowling face still etched in my mind.
“Well, is he going to keep having nightmares?” Lily asked, hands on her hips in annoyance. “I don’t want him sleeping down here if he’s going to keep waking me up with bad dreams.”
“Lily.”
The sound of Gage’s voice cutting through the dark caught us both by surprise. I glanced over my shoulder to find Gage standing in the door frame of the living room, frowning at his daughter who immediately looked ashamed.
“Ethan is only three-years old,” he scolded quietly. “You used to have nightmares, too. Don’t be mean.”
“I’m sorry,” Lily said. Her tangled brunette locks covered her face when she glanced down at the floor. “Is Ethan going to be okay?”
I rubbed soothing circles along Ethan’s back as he calmed down. I could feel the fear draining out of him steadily. Exhaustion eventually took back over, and he climbed sleepily into my lap to nestle against me. Sweeping him up in my arms, I cherished the weight of his warm body against my own while I settled down into the couch cushions. These types of moments were stretching far and few in between. Ethan never cuddled much because of Scott accusing me of coddling him too much. “He’ll never be a man if you insist on holding him all the time,” he had said.
“He’ll be fine,” I replied, but I had no idea if he would be. I had no idea if I was ever going to be fine again.
I glanced up to see Gage peering at me intently in the dark. A rush went through me when our eyes met, and that lingering desire filled the air between us. He knew just as well as I did what caused Ethan’s nightmares at night. He looked away to coax Lily back onto the other couch across from ours. Stretching out alongside his daughter, Gage draped a heavy blanket over the both of them while they settled down.
Ethan yawned sleepily against my shoulder. I draped a blanket over the both of us too, and while Ethan slipped back into dreamland, I found myself gazing out through the living room window. Around this time of the night in the middle of winter, I felt the calmest and most content. Snow continued to blanket the world outside of the window. Tomorrow, we would take the kids to go sledding down one of slopes in the Rocky Mountains that every parent around Colorado Springs took their kids to whenever it snowed.
None of that took away from the tension now radiating in the living room. I glanced over to find Gage’s eyes closed, but I knew he wasn’t asleep yet. He never fell asleep fast—exactly like me.
How did I end up here?
The past few years of my life seemed like an unreal blur. The first time I had met Gage was at a summer barbecue that my father had put on. I was a nerdy sophomore, trying not to be aroused by the masculinity that Gage exuded at the time, while playing a fun game of football to stripping down to jump into the pool. Gage’s friendship with my father had started when the both of them worked together on cyber security. My father had been the head of the cyber security congressional committee while Gage’s cyber defense software was picking up popularity with governmental agencies. It was a match made in heaven, but looking back at it now, I realized it was much bigger than that.
I believed in predestined events. Everything and everyone in my life were a part of a plan that I had no control over anymore, it seemed like. While Gage had gone on to get married and to eventually lose his wife, I had gone through college before marrying Scott. Our lives had separated for a long time until recently.
Ethan’s breathing evened out, but I didn’t even bother trying to move away from him. I wanted to stay like this in the hush of a winter night with the heaters kicking on as a comforting noise. I didn’t want to broach that subject with Gage about what was going to happen now. I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy conversation, given that my father was a well-known and liked congressman. Sleeping with my father’s best friend screamed against all the moral values that my father expected me to follow. My divorce from Scott had already raised enough disapproving eyebrows from the community until my father’s public relations team explained to the press why Scott and I were filing for divorce.
Watching my life being dissected on television, to be told that divorce was considered an abomination despite the reasons behind it, was already hard enough. I could only imagine what the press and the residents of Colorado Springs would think of me now.