He had a bathtub. An honest to goodness extra-large clawfoot bathtub that he said he’d wanted to get rid of many times, but I thanked the lucky stars that he hadn’t. Because filled with cheap shampoo for slipperiness and bubbles, it gave a respectable bubble bath, and after making him stand there and watch me get the steamy water ready, both of us totally naked, I couldn’t wait to get super clean.
I got in first, and went to my knees before he could get in, taking the head of his raging hard-on into my mouth.
“Fu—fuck, Gabi,” he cursed, grabbing my hair as though his knees might give.
I circled my tongue around the head, sucking, taking more and pulling back, only to take more the next time. My soapy, slippery hands moved onto his balls and slid along his shaft, bringing a growl from him that sent a wave of desire to my very core.
“Why don’t you get in now?” I said, giving his dick a final lick as I gazed up at him.
“You’re killing me,” he said, stepping into the water and sitting across from me. “Come here.”
I leaned forward to kiss him, and he turned me around so that my back slid against him in a slippery tease. His cock pushed against the cleft of my ass as his hands came up to palm my breasts.
“Oooh, nice move, Clark,” I breathed, as his teeth nipped at my neck and his thumbs and forefingers rolled my nipples. I arched my back, shoving my bottom against him, and he swore into my hair.
“I can’t take much more, Lois,” he said. “I want you so badly it hurts.” One hand slid down my belly to tease my already swollen clit, and that coupled with his gravelly “please” put me over the edge.
Turning around and straddling him, I leaned over and kissed him softly, thoroughly, reaching under the bubbles and stroking his dick against my clit as I moved against him. His hands went into my hair as a deep groan rumbled in his chest.
“God, you feel good,” I whispered against his lips.
“I know, so do I,” I said, finally settling down over him on the next stroke.
Primal moans echoed through the bathroom as my muscles squeezed around him and he stretched me out to take him. Oh God, it was more than I—better than I ever imagined, and everything in me tightened and needed to move.
I lifted up a stroke, and he grabbed my hips, digging his fingertips into my flesh.
“Go slow, baby,” he said through clenched teeth. “You feel too fucking good.”
“Not a problem,” I breathed. “I like slow.” Sliding up and down though, feeling him bottom out inside me, was—“Oh, sweet Jesus, Thatcher,” I moaned.
I moved my slippery hands up his chest and adjusted my angle to prolong the ecstatic agony, but it wasn’t going to be denied. He filled every part of me. And as I met his eyes stroke for stroke and saw the passion burning there, the heat, the feelings that weren’t even trying to hide anymore, I picked up speed. He took that cue and grabbed my waist, pumping me on his dick with no mercy, like I weighed nothing.
“Thatcher!” I cried, sucking in a breath that I couldn’t let out.
His face was contorted with exertion, and I couldn’t say anything else. I was flying a hundred miles an hour toward the edge of a cliff and it was coming—it was coming—and—
“Gabi!” he roared, just as I went over the edge, everything tensing, screaming, muscles burning, sensations flooding my body, all the way to the tips of my fingers.
Over and over the waves came, and we rode them till we collapsed against each other, chests heaving, gasping for air. We slid down farther into the water in a haze of exhaustion, me lying on his chest and him lazily toying with a strand of my hair.
“This is honestly the only finger I can move right now,” he said.
“More than I’ve got,” I said, not even opening my eyes. “You’re basically a floating device at the moment.”
“I’m not too proud.”
I laughed. “That was enough exercise for a week,” I said. “I can eat ice cream every day after that.”
“I have ice cream.”
“See? It’s fate.”
“Just think what you could eat if we made this a regular thing,” he said.
My eyes popped open. We’d done that. Crossed that line into real. Hell, we’d crossed that line a week ago. My first reaction was still to backpedal, but this time was different. This time, walls were down and there was a second reaction.
“Why do I hear gears moving in reverse in that head of yours?” he said.
I shook my head, still lying on him. “There’s no reverse,” I said, lifting my face to rest my chin on my hand and look into his eyes. “Just a pause, now.”
“A pause,” he echoed.
“A thinking pause,” I said, giving him a grin. “Like a stop sign when no one else is around.”
“Okay,” he said, chuckling. “What kind of thinking?”
“The good kind,” I said. “The kind that comes with words I’m not quite ready to hear come out of my mouth yet. But I’m willing to visit that later on.”
Thatcher ran a finger along my cheek, the look in his eyes enough to take my heart right out of my chest. “So am I, Lois.” Somehow, I knew, with that one look, that he was never more serious. He lifted a hand from the bubbly, and held up an imaginary glass. “Here’s to later on.”
I held up one, too, and bumped his. “To later on.”
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “It’s almost noon.”
“I’m starving.”
We got out and he gave me a large T-shirt to wear, making me feel very sexy and well-fucked while we made lunch in his kitchen together. What can I say? It was a thing. We talked and laughed and kissed over the dishwasher. It was—everything I said I didn’t want and yet didn’t know how badly I actually did. I just needed the right guy.
Post-lunch after post-sex had a vacation vibe to it, suddenly, like we were supposed to go back to bed (or it would have been back if we’d ever actually made it there) and lounge around all afternoon. I set my phone across the room next to his, and we pretended we were somewhere else, far far away. Somewhere that looked just like here, having long, sexy, slow sex for hours, before genuinely passing out in each other’s arms.
* * * *
An odd banging sound poked at my brain, pulling me from sleep. Really good sleep. The kind that comes from—oh, yeahhhhh. I smiled and buried my face in my pillow, reliving some of the finer moments.
I reached out and felt warm man, and smiled even bigger, snuggling up against his back and inhaling him for the four hundredth time. If I could bottle that and take it with me, I’d be more likely to buy batteries for my gadget.
“Thatch?” came a voice that didn’t go with my fantasy. “You here?”
My eyes sprung open, my heart leaping out the window.
“Shit!” I screamed silently, pounding on Thatcher. “Micah’s here!”
He jumped like he’d forgotten there was someone else in his bed, and came up ready to take me down.
“Shit, Gabi!”
“Shhh!” I said, pouncing out of bed, and looking frantically for the T-shirt from earlier. Found that, and spun in a circle looking for something that could pass for pants. “Don’t you leave anything lying around?”
“That’s what dressers are for,” he said, pointing. “Shorts in the third drawer down might work.”
“Thatch? You in the bathroom taking a shit?” Micah called up. “Why’s Gabi’s car here?”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I muttered, pulling on a perfectly folded pair of cargo shorts that came with a belt. They came below my knees, but I couldn’t be choosy at this point. I ran to the window.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Climbing out the window,” I said, peering out. I opened it and leaned out. A shallow roof, leading to a connected garage with a lower roof next to a tree. Done.
“What?” he said, laughing. Until I put a leg through. “Wait, Gabi, seriously what are you doing?”
“She can’t find me up here like this,” I said.
His eyebrows raised. “You’re still there? I thought you let all that crap go.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said, that backpedaling thing having deep enough roots in me to give it a hell of a shot. “But she can’t find out like this. I need to tell her!”
“So, tell her!” he said.
“I can’t!” I said. “I’ve been lying to her. I’ve got to figure out the right time to—”
Thatcher’s phone rang next to mine, across the room. It was Micah.
“It’s the right time,” he said.
“See you around front,” I said, disappearing through the window.
“Oh, for the love of God,” I heard him say. “Your car is outside.”
Yes, and I was working on a plan for that. As I traversed the roofline and jogged to the garage, the tree with its welcoming branches was no problem at all. I felt fifteen again, and rebellious.
Now to figure out this car thing.
Sprinting around to the front of the house, hiking up the shorts that didn’t want to stay, I wracked my brain for a plan. Maybe I just got there, wanted to talk about Wild Things. Maybe I left my wallet in his truck! I came out of the gate and rounded the corner of the house to the porch. Yes, the wallet was a perfect plan. I could—
“Hey, Gabi!” Micah said, standing on the porch steps, leaning on a railing.
“Hey…” I said, letting go of my shorts. They dropped to about mid-thigh.
“Nice look,” she said. “Why don’t you come in the front door like normal people?”
She turned and walked in, and I closed my eyes and counted to ten, hoping wisdom would hit me by then. I was a horrible friend. I never should have lied to her. I never should have betrayed her!
“Micah, I’m so sorry,” I said, walking in the door. “I never—”
Thatcher was mixing up batter for pancakes, and Micah was sipping a mug of coffee and digging through bags of chocolate chips and nuts to add to the batter.
She looked up and held out a hand. “I don’t need details. I get it.”
“You—you do?” I asked, giving Thatcher a look as he just stood there in sweatpants and a T-shirt, stirring. Really?
“Of course,” she said. “You’re all confused and wigged out right now, and it was a nutso day, and things happen.” She shrugged. “I just want you to be honest is all.”
Things happen. She thought this was a spontaneous thing.
“I know you just want to keep things light and all,” she said. “But last week, it was Hot Guy at that meeting, and you were falling hard for him. Seriously hard.”
I pulled out a chair and sat. This was going to be painful.
She leaned against the counter and it was all I could do not to cringe. We’d scrubbed the hell out of it, but I’d never in my life forget what went down there. Ha! Literally.
“Micah,” I began.
“I just don’t want either of you to get hurt over a hook-up,” she said.
I covered my face for a second, then dropped my hands.
“We aren’t a hook-up, Micah,” Thatcher said, not looking up.
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking between us.
He held up his whisk. “I’m Hot Guy,” he said.
Micah blinked and chuckled. “No, you’re not.”
Thatcher shrugged. “I didn’t make up the name.”
“He is,” I said, bringing her widened eyes to me. I blew out a breath. “There were no names, remember?” I said. “I didn’t know who he was till you and I went to the office, and then—then I was so freaked out, and I’d told you all that stuff, and now it was about your brother—and then I was afraid of losing you, or losing the business, and so we tried not to continue,” I said, all in a rush.
“She tried,” Thatcher said, banging the whisk on the bowl. “I didn’t care.”
“Well, no, your sister isn’t going to stop being your sister,” I said. “I had to worry about my best friend freaking out that I was falling for her brother.”
Micah said nothing, her mug halfway to her lips through the whole exchange. Then her dark eyes landed on Thatcher.
“You went to a support group?”
I gaped as he just nodded like it was no surprise.
“That’s the most shocking thing to you?” I asked.
She held up a finger. “I’ll get back to you.”
Great. She was done with our friendship over this. Everything I feared was about to happen. I’d gotten the guy, but lost the girl, and I didn’t know if I could stand that.
“You kept telling me to get out there and start interacting, so…” he said, leaving what he was doing to go close a cabinet door she’d left open.
“I meant go to a club,” she said. “Meet women. I never saw you as the divorcee support group type.”
“Well, it’s what I decided to do,” he said, turning on a griddle, “and I did meet women.”
I snorted. “You met Aspen.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were more interesting.”
“In my Wonder Woman super sexy hoodie?” I asked, grinning.
“I didn’t come back for the fruit,” he said, dipping his head to kiss my hair on his way to grab a dishtowel.
“Oh my God, y’all are for real,” Micah said softly, almost to herself.
I sighed. “I didn’t want to be,” I said. “But it just kept being there, working on me.”
“And you lied to me,” she said, her eyes back on me.
The warm fuzzy that I had from Thatcher fizzled out, and my eyes burned.
“I kept trying to end it so I wouldn’t have to,” I said.
The question threw me. “What—I don’t understand.”
“If it wasn’t just a hook-up, and you really had feelings going, why would you throw that away?” she asked.
Thatcher pointed a spatula at her. “Exactly.”
I held out my hands. “You were the one saying oh my God, y’all would kill each other and blow up the world, and then where would I be,” I said, letting my hands drop.
“I’m pretty sure I never mentioned blowing up the world,” she said.
“Well, you were right,” I said, “and I tried to avoid it for as long as possible, but—”
“Gabi,” she said, interrupting me. “I don’t care.”
I blinked. “You don’t?”
“Are you kidding?” she said, thumbing between us. “You should see yourselves right now. You’re happy. He’s happy,” she emphasized, pointing at Thatcher, “and that alone is a miracle.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“If it works, it works,” she said. “I’m just upset that you felt you had to lie to me.”
“I had just told you all the Hot Guy details in the car,” I said. “Everything we—”
“Oh my God,” she said, her face scrunching up.
“Yeah,” I said, pointing. “So I didn’t want to make things weird. I thought I could nix it and forgo all that.”
“And then the kiss at the restaurant,” Thatcher said.
“The fake date at Rojo’s,” I said.
“Your apartment,” he said.
“My house,” I added.
“Y’all have been doing it every day?” Micah asked, cringing a little.
“No, that wasn’t until today,” Thatcher said.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said, dropping her head. “Please tell me I didn’t interrupt that.”
“I’ll let you sweat that one out, little sister,” he whispered, pouring the first two pancakes onto the griddle.
“I just didn’t know how to unlie to you about it once I started,” I said. “I’ve been spinning in circles about it. It’s the one thing that scared me the most.”
She pushed off the counter and walked over to me.
“You never have to cover things up for me,” she said. “Either of you.” She put her mug down and hugged me tight. “You’re the two people I love the most. Well, and Leo. And Jackson.” She let go, and spun on Thatcher. “Did Jackson know?”
“Only when he walked in on us,” Thatcher said.
“Oh, ick,” she said.
I left out that I was pretty sure Jackson suspected from the very beginning. It didn’t serve a purpose to point out that he was much more observant.
“But I’m putting him on my shit list for not calling me,” she said. “I get what you were trying to do, but he totally should have called me to gossip.”
“Thank God he finally has a flaw,” Thatcher said.
“How did you know I was outside?” I said. “And go wait for me on the porch?”
“Seriously?” she said. “I made a career of climbing out of these windows as a kid. I know all the routes.”
“So, we’re good?” I asked, laughing.
“Girl, we’re always good,” she said. “You’re my person.”
My eyes burned with happy tears. “You’re mine.”
“No details, though,” she said. “I’m the only one that can talk about sex.”
“And yet, not right now,” Thatcher said.
“Okay, so first things first—Lanie and the baby are great. Everything’s fine. It was a clot, and she’ll be monitored, but everybody is awesome.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said, feeling a little guilty that I hadn’t thought more about that in the last few hours.
“And here’s the super question of the day,” Micah said. “What are y’all going to do with your money?”
“Not sure,” Thatcher said. “Save a lot of it, but I have an idea for something.” He glanced at her. “What would you think if I hired an office manager for the farm and went back to finish my paramedic training?”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, nearly bouncing with joy for him.
“That would be awesome!” she said. “Do it!”
He smiled, as he flipped pancakes. “Think I am.”
“And you?” she asked, looking my way.
My heart fluttered in my chest. I knew. I just didn’t know how it might affect the future. This suddenly very new, very real future standing in front of me flipping pancakes.