I remember an article I wrote in my early thirties. I was in South America anyway and my agent figured I could make a short trip to Venezuela to put together a fluff piece about beauty pageants in the female high security prisons there. One of the magazines I wrote for loved that kind of thing. The readers wouldn’t be caught dead watching Say Yes to the Dress on TV, but they’d gobble down a piece with trashy pictures making a spectacle of kind-of hot woman with face tattoos and wedding veils. So long as it was in the same newspaper where they got all their financial news and political analysis.

The editor raked through it and put in this line just a day before publishing: “Even Daniela Rojas, 41, joins in on the fun, hijacking a fuchsia counterfeit MAC lipstick from her younger cellmate Anny, who was convicted of murder in 2001.” I remember giving him my best you-have-to-be-kidding face and said, “even?” It was a small thing, but it bugged me. That tiny little word said so much, and I hated it. Hated putting my name on that piece, which went through with that nasty little word in it.

I was way, way older than 41 myself these days. The thought of some journalist smugly writing me off in that way had my blood boiling. Even Daniela Rojas, at the ancient, decrepit, unthinkably advanced age of 41. Even her, ladies and gentlemen! Step right up and see with your own eyes the bizarre freak of nature – a woman of 41, ladies and gentlemen! – who goes right ahead and wears pink lipstick, even in the presence of a younger female. Even at that age. I brought it up to the editor later who scarcely remembered adding the line. He said, “what? Most women don’t get married when they’re that old.”

Besides, I myself preferred red, if we’re talking bold lipstick.

Jack would be here in just a few minutes. I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and wondered what that asshole editor would have to say about me now. Yes, James, even “old” women have naughty, predatory thoughts… and I would never have had the guts to do any of it a decade or two ago.

The doorbell rang; I gave my best vixen smile to the mirror and then went downstairs to let him in. Then I gave him the same smile, and watched him squirm a little.

“You… look amazing,” he said. I kissed his cheek and invited him in.

I poured us each a glass of bourbon and watched as he swirled it round the glass with amusement.

“You sure I should be drinking this? Seems like it should be in a museum,” he laughed.

He looked particularly handsome this evening. Jack wasn’t exactly a cover boy, that was true. No, what was hot about Jack was all functional. It came out in the subtle, playful movements of his facial features – a little smile here, a naughty sparkle in the eye there. Jack was the kind of man you might not look twice at walking down the street. But if he looked at you? Oh, you’d know about it.

Plus, I had to admit I was eager to get those clothes off of him as soon as possible. He had been a little coy so far, but I knew what I felt, that day in the broken down restaurant kitchen. As I sat there taking dainty sips of my admittedly geriatric bourbon, all I could think about was stroking my hands down over that hard chest of his again. There was no doubt about it. It was happening tonight. He knew it, and I knew it.

We must have talked for a while, but who knows what we said. I wasn’t paying attention. At some point in the evening he placed his empty glass aside and looked at me, and everything inside me turned to jelly. I’m a strong, composed woman. I’ve worked with hardened criminals, arrogant politicians and armed guerillas. I know how to handle a man who thinks he’s hot shit. But Jack O’Connor? Let’s just say I was liking how slightly intimidated he was making me feel.

“So you’re not bothered about the burglary anymore?” he asked. But his eyes were asking a different question. A question that maybe went, “so how do you want to do this?” or “who’s going to make the first move, you or me…?”

“The burglary? Nah. I’m sure you have bigger fish to fry anyway.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he laughed.

“Well, the other detective spoke to me yesterday and I guess that’s the end of it. If the thief had known he’d get away scot-free, he might as well have taken all this other crap, right?” I laughed and gestured around the room.

“Crap?” he said and raised his eyebrows. “Really? Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever been in such an expensive looking room before” he said and looked nervously down at the sofa. Or should I say, the chaise longue.

I put my own glass aside.

“Well, yeah. My late husband liked nice things. He had expensive taste,” I said and couldn’t help but look at his hands.

“Clearly,” he replied and looked me up and down with a naughty smile.

I laughed.

“What me? Oh, just because I can pull off being a pretty housewife doesn’t mean I actually am one, you know.”

“No?”

To my surprise, he grabbed the bourbon and poured us both more drinks. I loved how he just grabbed the neck of the bottle and glugged away, pouring us both big, generous glasses and clunking the bottle back down on the table like he didn’t give a shit that that bottle was 12 years old.

“Nope. I think of my married life as a bit like… I don’t know, like I was under deep cover,” I said, taking the glass from him and clinking the rim against his glass. His eyes were just the same color as the bourbon, but twinklier. It was hard to tell which was responsible for the warm, tipsy feeling spreading all through my body.

“I see. So why don’t you get rid of the disguise already?” And before I thought about what I was doing, I watched as my hand slinked over the sofa and found its way to his knee. I looked down at it there, noticing that this probably counted as the first move.

“I don’t know, to be honest,” I said. “I kind of forgot what I used to be before.” He felt warm under my hands. “I sued to be different I think. Before all this, before all the expensive clothes…” I said and tugged at the black dress I was wearing.

“We should get rid of them,” he said quietly. My heart bounded in my chest. I caught his eye.

“I mean, we should get rid of all the things keeping you down, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. I kept my hand where it was.

“A fancy, over-the-top house like this just doesn’t seem like the right place for you.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No way. You’re… how can I put this? This place is like a cage for someone like you. It’s too nice.”

I laughed.

“I mean it. You can’t breath in here. I’d be scared to break something, you know?”

I raised my eyebrow at him.

“Break something? Well now, just what were you planning to do in my house?” I teased, and the smile he gave me sent a juicy jolt right between my legs. Perhaps I’d bitten off more than I could chew this time…

“Well, I actually came over here with an ulterior motive. I’m not just here to drink your expensive booze.”

I gave a pretend gasp and he continued.

“I’m here cause I wanted to… make a suggestion, let’s say.” Here he reached down and put his own hand on mine. His touch was calm, assured. And yet by some sorcery, it was turning me on more than I could have imagined all this morning when I had been fantasizing about this moment.

“A suggestion? Hmmm… well, I’m listening.”

He moved his hand so slightly on mine I wouldn’t have been able to feel it were it not for the fact that every part of me seemed hyper-alert at that moment. He smelled like warm leather and grass and soapy wool jumpers.

“Well, the only trouble is, what I’ll be asking from you is a little… unusual.”

When he traced his hand over and beyond mine to stroke my thigh, I nearly lost my mind. He did it easily, like there was nothing in this world more natural and obvious for him to do at that moment. He traced his hand up to play at the crease my thigh made at the hip and then squeezed slightly. It was far sexier than kissing somehow. Like he was sizing me up. Feeling what was underneath the thick velvet of my dress.

I couldn’t speak. All my attention zoomed in on his hand. It was the kind of touch that could become anything. His hands had a delicious kind of arrogance in them. I could easily believe that he could grab me, turn me over and have this expensive, unwanted dress off me in a few seconds flat. And I could believe that he was just teasing me. Just warming me up. I let him.

“I wouldn’t be asking you what I’m about to ask you if I didn’t think you were capable of handling it.”

It was clear to both of us that several conversations were going on at once. I wanted to seduce Jack O’Connor, sure. I wanted to rip that shirt off him and fuck him so hard he saw stars. But I also wanted him to tell me more about the story. What could be sexier than state secrets, cover ups, corruption at the highest levels of government?

“Oh I think I can handle it,” I said. He smiled.

“I hope so. I have a favor to ask. A big favor. Maybe a little too big…”

I gulped involuntarily as his hand now slipped smoothly onto my lower belly, so close to that hidden throbbing inside. He leaned in slowly, quietly. His hand moved over my body and all at one time, it was both tentative and commanding. Gentle but rough at the same time.

And there it was. That …thing I saw in the restaurant that day. That rawness in the way he looked at me, that intensity in his gaze, like he could eat me up with his eyes alone. I saw it switch on inside him like a light. I hadn’t been the one to make the first move. He had. And he did it by looking at me like that.

When he pounced on me and put his ravenous lips against mine, that aching heat between my legs seemed to swell and break its banks, flooding all through me. His tongue worked expertly over mine, one strong hand coming to cup the back of my neck and the other still pawing my thighs, my belly, up towards my breasts... He seemed to be everywhere, touching, stroking, kissing me in so many places at once I could only respond with a whimper against his lips.

When his teeth came to playfully nibble my lower lip I responded instantly with a bite of my own. He smiled.

“You like a little danger, don’t you?” he whispered between hot kisses. By now we were pressed firm against one another, bodies writhing. If danger felt like this? Then sure. I fucking loved it. My hips pushed hard against his and all at once he was on top of me, and both my hands were at my ears, pinned down.

“Just a little danger?” he said, and tightened his grip on my wrists. The wet ache in my clit was so intense I couldn’t help writhing up to press against his full weight. Something shattered and we both quickly turned to look at the bottle of bourbon lying on its side on the table, clearly kicked over by his foot.

We both watched in silence as the rich golden liquid glugged out the bottle and flowed freely over the table and onto my expensive imported rugs. There it went, hundreds of dollars, in a few quick seconds. His hands still pinning my wrists, he turned to look down at me, as thought to see if I would freak out.

“You did threaten to break all the lovely things in my house, didn’t you?” I laughed.

His lips came down again for another passionate kiss and I kissed back up, tasting that very bourbon on his lips and happy for him to spill whatever else he wanted to.

Without thinking, I kicked my own foot out and it collided with the table. The bourbon bottle skidded right over the wet surface and came crashing off the far edge of the table, hitting the bare tiles on the other end of the room. I could make out the small shards of glass glittered in the light but this time he didn’t care to look. He only kissed me more deeply.

“I hate all this shit,” I said out loud, and I knew he knew exactly what I meant. I hated my big stupid house and I hated the too-sculptured trees outside and I hated my mirrored alcohol cabinet and I hated that I was in here, alone, as pointless as every other trinket in here. This house belonged to a dead man. Why the fuck did I still live here? Jack was right.

“You hate it…?” he murmured against my lips, his breath and warm and urgent, his hands still groping at my flesh underneath the velvet. “You hate all this fancy stuff?”

“I fucking hate it,” I said with a cheeky smile. He took my head between his hands and traced a single finger over the lips he had only a second ago been devouring.

“Then let me help you get rid of it. All of it.”

Before I could respond he had crouched down low, grabbed the hem of my dress in both hands and swiftly yanked up to reveal my pale body underneath, wrapped in even fancier lingerie. He didn’t seem to care that the very top of the dress was ripping in his hands. In fact, instead of slipping it over my shoulders and pulling it off over my head, he bunched his hands into fists and tore it once, pulling it clean into two pieces. I laughed in shock.

“These will have to go too,” he said, a little breathless, as he looked down at the intricate black lace panties. I had bought these in Paris at Agent Provocateur. Andre had paid unthinkable amounts of money for these flimsy little scraps. And now, there was nothing I wanted more than to be rid of them. I lifted my hips to him. Let him tear them too. Let him strip me completely.

I squealed as he descended on me, all nibbles and caresses and greedy, greedy hands. I don’t know how, but I soon felt the cool air on my naked body, and couldn’t deny how wet he had made me. When he stopped kissing me I could see that his shirt was off too. His body was a thing of wonder. He was broad shouldered, muscular, rough. He was far, far more of an animal than even I had guessed…

He was straddling over me, each of his legs on either side of my hips, claiming me, curling over me again and again to deliver deep, hungry kisses. I had known military men before. I was no stranger to soldiers, to marines, to generals and colonels and lieutenants. But I didn’t care about Jack O’Connor’s rank at that moment. To me, he was an archetypal warrior, a man pulsing with primal energy that was more than a little frightening. I wanted him to take me.

His kisses trailed down my jaw, down along my neck, onto my flushed collarbones… I twisted my head to the side and looked at the destroyed bottle, lying in shattered pieces on the floor.

“Break everything, Jack,” I whispered. I didn’t know if he had heard me. My mind went back to the morning I woke to find my house ransacked. I wanted more of that. I turned to look as he pulled back a little, pulled down his zip, and then stood to shrug off his pants. He was now towering over me, chest slightly heaving, and from my crumpled spot on the sofa I looked up at him, half daring him to keep going.

I couldn’t help but stare at his cock. He was built generously, and he stood proud before me. For a moment, he looked like a mythical figure you’d see in a classical oil painting titled Samson in the Temple or something, loose fists held at his sides, jaw set. It was thick and hard, and hung between us like the best possible kind of threat. Yes, this was it. Not a man who needed costly things to advertise his status. Before me was a man who didn’t need a title, or a rank, or a chain of command. He didn’t even need a weapon. Here was a man who was intimidating, just as he was, even completely naked.

My heart fluttered wildly in my chest. Overcome, I reached over the side table and grabbed a little porcelain figurine n my hands. In one swift motion, I drew back my hand and flung it across the room and sent it smashing into a cabinet on the far end of the room. It crashed a jagged hole right through the glass door of the cabinet and sent it tinkling to the ground. He spun to watch it go and then turned to look immediately back at me, a slow, sideways smile spreading on his lips. I looked at him with fire in me.

“That was a special edition Lladro figurine,” I said slowly, like I was saying a string of extremely dirty words. “It cost $600.”

His smile broke out into a full grin. Abandoning his prior plan to tackle me and finish the work his tongue had started a moment ago, he took a step back and scanned the room for more pointless treasures. His eye caught a vase on the table on the other end of the couch, then he looked back at me. I gave a small nod.

He grabbed the vase with both hands and brought it down viciously to the hard floor a few feet away from us. The noise was incredible. It sent a wild thrill all through me and I couldn’t help but squeal and bring my hands up to my face. I jumped to my feet, naked, and, not quite believing what I was about to do, grabbed the side table in my hands and lifted it off the ground. In the split second it took to take aim and swing, I felt my entire life change, as though on a hinge reaching its apex and swinging in the opposite direction. The table came whizzing through the air as I pitched it straight towards the cabinet that had just endured the figurine attack.

Jack’s eyes went wide, and the cabinet exploded in a firework of glass and fractured wood all around the corner of the table. I saw it unfold in beautiful, slow motion, the fractured pieces bursting out from that one point. It somehow felt all the better because I was stark naked, and so was he.

In the silence we looked around at the broken glass all around us. He reached forward and scooped me up in his arms for a kiss that electrified me from the tip of my head to the tips of my toes. He and I now shared a secret, completely insane mission together: we were going to tear away my stupid jail cell of a house …and it was going to be sexy as hell. I felt his cock press into my belly, and couldn’t help absentmindedly grinding against it as our tongues touched base with one another again. I wasn’t done yet.

With his one hand still in mine, I set to work demolishing the rest of the room. It wasn’t pretty, but he came along right with me, smashing and tearing every boring, overpriced item in there, till we were surrounded by pure chaos. The paintings came off the walls and lay, straggled in broken frames, on the floor. The carpets were kicked into heaps up against the walls. Every piece of furniture was turned over or upside down and the contents of every drawer were joyfully tossed all over.

I did the most damage, but Jack stepped in as needed, his superior strength finishing off all those things I couldn’t. By the time we flew again into one another’s arms, we were warm and slick with sweat and riled up in a way that felt more than a little dangerous. I can’t describe what happened to me, with each book I opened and shredded, or each lamp I demolished against the wall. I only knew these artefacts had served their purpose, and I no longer wanted anything to do with them What I wanted was human, and raw, and real, and swollen and pumped full of life… What I wanted was to fuck this gorgeous strong man in front of me until I forgot my own name.

We stood wrapped together in each other’s arms, the only things still standing, and kissing him this time felt like opening a present again and again and again. He threaded his fingertips through my hair and dragged them over my scalp. He pulled me close to him, every part of my naked body against every part of his. I was so wet I could feel it trickling slowly down my inner thigh, so that when he reached down to hoist me up in his arms, I felt like I must surely be melting from the inside out.

He tiptoed his way through the ruins and carried me upstairs. The guest room was the closest, and without switching the light on, he dropped me down onto the bed and collapsed onto me, murmuring kisses over every part of my body. With an easy authority he forced my legs apart and when I felt his fingers gliding up my inner thigh, I couldn’t help arch my back up to meet them. He traced teasing circles over a clit that felt like it was about to explode. But he wasted no time. I held tight against his chest and buried my face in his neck as he sunk one and then two fingers into me. I was on fire.

We pressed moaning, kissing lips together and he whimpered sweetly into my hair as he fucked me with his fingers, his other arm looped snugly under around my waist. I reached down for him and grabbed his cock in my hands, thrilled with how hot it felt against me, feeling an almost magnetic pull from deep inside me for every inch of it.

There was no distinct moment when I felt him enter me. All I knew was that all of a sudden things kicked up a gear and there was nothing I could do to resist the instinct to writhe rhythmically against him. I felt him everywhere. I could taste him on my lips. I could feel his hands caressing, squeezing my waist, my hips. Pinned under his immense chest, I felt only his hips draw back and sink into me, again and again, and my body yielded like I was molten inside…

I drew my legs wide apart and felt his stiff cock plunge deep into the soaking wet core of me. I think I must have tried to swear, or speak his name, or something, but both our voices melted together into one desperate, hot moan. He was a firm but surprisingly tender lover; the last man I would have expected to be touching me so sweetly with his fingertips while at the same time finding a rough, delicious pace with his dick.

Every time he brought his hips full down against mine, cramming the thick length of his cock as far in as he could go, I felt something gooey and wonderful stir inside me. Each deep, full thrust nudged me closer and closer to the steep edge of an orgasm that I couldn’t avoid now. I knew that when I came, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself screaming. Loudly.

A soft triangle of light entering the guest room from outside, and struck across his bare chest, keeping him in the light, and me down below him in the dark. We crashed together this way, our bodies hot and urgent against one another, hips grinding impatiently together as I felt that he, too, was close to coming. Propping himself on his elbows he peered down at me, with an expression on his face that seemed like it was unravelling – the naughty smile had become a softly open mouth, abandoned to pleasure. The eyes twinkling with something hiding inside them were now completely naked, wide open and looking at me with the same quiet amazement that I was looking back at them. I hadn’t expected it to be this good. Neither did he, it seemed.

When his hips slowed and shuddered against me, I knew he was close to the edge. He began to stroke at my temples, swallowing hard enough that I could make out the bobbing in his Adam’s apple. He was fucking gorgeous. I squeezed my thighs tightly around him, pulling him deep into me, still not quite believing how good each of those smooth, deep strokes felt.

“I think I could get used to this,” he growled, with just the faintest twitch of his cock inside me to let me know exactly what he meant by “this.” I smiled up at him and tried to hold off my own impending orgasm with a few deep breaths. I traced long strokes down the length of his firm, taut back.

“Now what was this big favor you had to ask me, hm?” I purred, relishing the white-hot bliss of teetering right on the edge like this with him, our bodies swollen and locked tight into one another. It was so close I felt that if I had to take just one more breath, just one more molecule of his cock, I’d burst for sure.

He let his neck and head flop down. He lowered his lips next to my ear. I could hear the excitement edging every word as he struggled to stay on that delicious knife edge with me.

“I want you to write my story,” he said.

I pulled back and looked at him. In my heightened state, I could see the future unfolding rapidly in front of me. It was precisely what I needed, wasn’t it? I needed him. I needed Jack O’Connor in my life to shake things up, to break it all, to fill me up with his magnificent cock and save me from all the stale, dead things that kept me here…

Before I could answer he propped up on his elbows again, full of that haughty arrogance I had seen in him as he smashed my prize siting parlor a moment ago, and gave me a teasing smile. He pulled the slick piston of his thick cock back and then all at once plunged back into my quivering body, sending a wave of messy, juicy pleasure spurting all the way through me. He gave a deep, low growl as he orgasmed right along with me, his powerful hips jerking hard against me and unloading a jet of hot cum deep inside.

“Fuck!” he cried out and the weight of his strong body was again on mine. “Oh fuck…”

We quaked and convulsed against one another, riding out the rough ends of a wave that seemed to pulse through both of us in unison. I felt his tight, knotted muscles under the skin as he pressed against my chest. When his fat cock slid gently out of me, it drew out a thick string of cum that linked us together. We both looked down at the glistening shaft, both a little impressed at how much mess two people could make.

The bulging head of his cock bobbed a little and thumped softly against my thighs as he kneeled back onto his haunches, grasping each of my ankles in his hands. I peered down at him, still buzzing and twitching inside, and watched as he leaned forward to plant a tender kiss on the soft mound of fuck between my legs. He had fucked me hard and deep, and I was laying here exhausted, soaked with hi warm, thick cum and with a stupid smile plastered on my face. But that little kiss was just the cherry on top of an already extravagant ice cream sundae. That little kiss blew my mind. What a gentleman, truly.

He cracked his neck one side then the other and tried to catch his breath. I liked watching him trying to gather himself, trying to breathe although it was obvious by the veins in his neck and the sweat on his brow that I had thoroughly rocked his world. I flopped back and let that gooey post-orgasm delight rush through me. I knew he was admiring my naked breasts. With his hands stroking sweetly up and down my calves, I knew he was drinking in the sight of me, splayed there before him like the cat that got the cream, if you’ll pardon the expression.

“Can I take that as a yes?” he whispered, and stroked my ankle.

It was my turn to prop up on my elbows and look him in the eye.

“I barely know you, Mr O’Connor,” I said coyly.

He smiled at me.

“And a story about a disgraced SEAL team? Sounds like it might attract a lot of negative attention for a little old journalist like me…” I said. God, he had a handsome dick. I looked at it, resting thick and red in the crease where his thigh met his stomach.

“It sounds like it could even be dangerous,” I said, and let my legs flop open a little, knowing full well the view this must have given him, kneeling between my legs.

He traced a fingertip up my ankle, along my shin and down again into that still-wet slit, idly stroking the opening he had generously fucked a moment before. I squeezed my eyes shut and arched my back a little.

“What’s not to like?” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s a yes?”

“It’s a yes,” I moaned, and my body was already responding to him again. I grabbed his hand and lifted my head.

“But I think you’re going to have to make me cum just one more time before I make my final decision,” I moaned.

I squealed as he grabbed me roughly by the thighs and hoisted my hips closer to him.

“Yes ma’am.”

I could already feel myself getting wet all over again.