Coming home to find Maya cooking had been a dream of sorts. There was a time when I thought coming home to her every night was our future. That was before I went off the deep end and fucked it up by dumping her, thinking if I got rid of everyone around me, it would somehow change what had happened to me.

She had made chicken curry in a way I had never tasted, and it was delicious. Everything she’d made was amazing, and it was a pleasure to watch her eat. I got so irritated with women that starved themselves, that ate a few lettuce leaves and counted every calorie.

Maya counted calories, too, but it was to ensure that she had enough, not that she’d eaten too much. She ate the same amount as any full-grown man and did it without shame. Yet her body was healthy and strong, her muscles tight. She was fit and hot as hell. I liked sporty women, not skinny models with puffy lips.

After supper, we washed up the dishes together. We were doing this all the way, playing house together. She washed the dishes and I dried them and put them away. We talked as we cleaned side by side, reminiscing about our time in college together, talking about classes and lecturers and what it used to be like to see each other every day. It hadn’t been much different than it was now. It had been special to make time to spend together then. It felt the same, now.

“You were always so busy, training,” Maya said. I ignored the pang in my chest.

“So, were you,” I said. “Besides, what if I wasn’t training? What if I was just hanging out with other girls?”

Maya turned to me with a shocked expression. I laughed at her.

“You’re adorable when you fall for my shit,” I said.

Maya splashed me. “You asshole,” she said. “You’ve never stopped doing this to me. Nothing has changed.”

“You got my shirt wet,” I said. I walked to the basin, scooped water and splashed her back. Maya gasped, laughing.

“That’s not fair,” she said. She dipped her hands into the water. I grabbed her arms so she couldn’t splash me again and held her. She laughed, trying to wrestle herself out of my grip. My hands were wet and slippery, so she nearly got away a few times. I had to use my strength against her, and she was stronger than she looked.

The splashing had turned into wrestling of sorts, and before I knew it, she was pressed up against me, her chest heaving, her eyes laughing. Our lips were inches from each other and her breath hitched in her throat. The atmosphere had changed around us and was now charged with desire, and I wanted her. Badly.

I kissed her. I couldn’t help myself. Maya kissed me right back and I knew I had read the situation correctly. I realized I was still holding her arms and let go. Maya wrapped her them around my neck and I walked her backwards until she was up against the fridge. I put my hands on her breasts and massaged them, squeezing, pinching her nipples through the tank top she had on. When she gasped into my mouth I reached down and pulled her shirt over her head.

“You’re not wearing a bra,” I said, surprised I hadn’t noticed before that she was suddenly topless in front of me.

“Hidden support,” she said, pointing at the shirt. I had no idea what that meant, but I didn’t care. When I touched her again her nipples were hard in my palms, her skin soft. I ran my hands over her body and she gasped and moaned. She undressed me, too. We stripped each other of our clothes until she was naked and I only had my jockey shorts on.

Maya reached for the waistband but that could wait. I wanted to taste her, to pleasure her. I picked her up, lifting her by her thighs, and she wrapped her strong, beautiful legs around me. I turned around and put her down on the counter where we had eaten. She gasped at the cold countertops beneath her, but I spread her legs, quickly making her forget.

Her scent wafted up to me and awoke the animal inside me. I dove between her legs, closing my lips over her pussy, sticking out my tongue and licking her slit from her entrance to her clit. She writhed and moaned and I put my hands on her hips to hold her steady. I flicked my tongue over her clit and her body spasmed, her breath forced out of her lungs with every stroke as she whimpered and gasped. Licking her, tasting her, eating her out. She squirmed and made sounds that made me horny as hell for her.

I pushed my tongue into her a few times, fucking her that way before I sucked on her clit. She cried out when I did and moaned and gasped loudly. I sucked and licked until she shuddered and fell apart with her first orgasm. Her hands moved to my hair and she closed her fists, tugging at me, holding my head in place and bucking her hips.

The orgasm was mind-blowing. For me as much as for her. She gasped and moaned and curled on the counter, balanced between my mouth and my hands. All I could think about was getting my dick inside her and claiming her as my own, again and again.

I pulled off my shorts and my rock hard cock sprang free, eager to get in on the action. I was slick with precum and throbbing with lust. I took Maya’s hand and pulled her up so she sat again. She was breathing hard, her hair a tousled mess as if we had been fucking for hours, and her eyes were a dark brown, pupils dilated. Her lips were parted and I kissed her, letting her taste herself on mine.

“I’ll be right back,” I said. I wanted nothing more than to take her right there, right now, but I needed to make sure we were safe. It was the right thing to do. I jogged to the bedroom, grabbed a condom and returned, rolling it onto my hard dick. Maya sat on the counter, watching me with a face that suggested she was impatient for what came next.

I pulled her closer to the edge so she was barely balancing on it. She put her hands on my shoulder to keep her balance and I guided my dick to her entrance. She was dripping wet with a combination of her sex and my saliva as I pushed into her. I pulled her closer to me, pulling her deeper onto me with my hands on her tight ass. The muscles were firm beneath my palms and she wrapped her legs around my waist again.

We rocked together, creating friction. She was almost completely holding onto me, the counter doing nothing more than helping me hold up her weight. I started fucking her and she gasped in my ear. It was a pleasure being with her. Her body was to be appreciated and this was Maya, the only woman I had really ever given my heart to.

Maya tipped her head back as I fucked her. Her breasts were close to my face and I dipped my head and sucked on her nipples as I worked myself in and out of her. The rhythm was slow and sensual, bringing me closer and closer to orgasm, but I wasn’t going to reach it like this. For now, this was enough, though. Being with Maya, the world falling away and the two of us getting it on in my kitchen was perfect. It was better than I could have imagined it, and God knows I’d imagined a lot of compromising positions for the two of us since we’d last fucked.

When I couldn’t hold it anymore, when the ache to release became greater than the sheer pleasure of being inside her, I pulled out of her. Maya gasped, breathing hard. Her skin was slick with sweat, shiny in the kitchen light. I looked the same, I knew. I gently pushed her back so she lay on the counter and carefully I climbed on with her. The counter wasn’t a very large surface and it took precise movements to stay on top with her, but I had been an athlete once too, and she still was. We could make this work.

When I was on top of her, her thighs opened for me, her eyes hungry, I positioned myself over her and pressed my dick against her entrance. She held her breath in anticipation until I pushed into her and she cried out.

I groaned, pushing into her as deep as I could before I pulled back. In this position, I had more leverage, and aside from our balancing act to stay on the counter I could go harder and faster.

So I did. I hammered into her, picking up the pace, fucking her harder and harder. She cried out, rocking back and forth on the hard countertop so that her breasts jiggled. Our breathing was in sync, our body rocking together and with every thrust, I came closer and closer to the edge. She was flirting with another orgasm, too. I wanted us to come together, again. We had done it the last time and it was pure ecstasy. It was so much more personal when we did it at the same time, and she was the only woman I had ever done that with. Ever.

It was a sign, to me. A sign that she was the only woman I wanted.

I stopped thinking about romance and focused on my body and what it needed. I shortened my strokes and fucked her harder still until she cried out, finally tipping over the edge. Her body clamped down on mine and it sent me over as well. I released inside of her, emptying myself out as she came undone at the seams and we cried out in unison. We rode the wave together, experiencing the ecstasy, the high that we had created together.

When it was finally over, I took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder.

“You have a terrible attention span,” I said. “You get distracted way too easily.”

Maya laughed and the little jerks around my dick made me gasp. I slipped out of her and carefully climbed off the counter. Maya sat up. I rolled the condom off my dick and dropped it into the kitchen bin. Picking up Maya’s clothes, I handed them to her.

“Come on,” I said gently. “Let’s go to bed.”

She nodded, taking the clothes from me. I pulled on my shorts again and turned toward the sink to finish putting the dishes away, giving Maya some privacy while she got dressed. Somehow, staring after the fact seemed a little invasive. Privacy wasn’t wrong.

She came to stand next to me when she was dressed, helping me finish with the dishes and rinse out the sink. When we were done, I took her hand and led her to the bedroom. She didn’t suggest she go back to the guest bedroom. She crawled under the cover with me and I pulled her against me, curling my body around hers. With her back pressed to my front, the smell of her shampoo combined with the smell of our sex in my nostrils I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting out tension I hadn’t known I’d been holding, holding for a long time.

Everything was perfect with her. I wished we could make this a permanent arrangement. With Maya in my arms, everything that had gone wrong in my life felt further away, far enough that it didn’t bother me. I had said goodbye to her when everything had blown up in my face, but maybe I should have kept her close so she could keep shielding me.

She was here because I was protecting her, physically, from Tyler. But I was starting to realize that with her here, she protected me emotionally, from myself.