All I could do was hold her and let her cry into my shoulder.

She shook as she sobbed, her nose running. Every time I tried to reach the nightstand to grab a tissue for her nose and eyes, she held onto me for dear life, and I couldn’t move.

So I let her cry.

And I hoped, when she finally stopped, I would be able to soothe her.

She was so strong, and this burst of crying didn’t sway my opinion of that. Something had gotten to her, and I prayed it hadn’t been me.

No, it hadn’t.

We’d come in from the hot tub, dried off, taken a quick shower, and then snuggled in bed, kissing.

Yes, we’d made out, and I’d felt like a teenager again in the back of my car. That’s how thrilling making out with Ruby had been.

We hadn’t made love again, although I’d been more than ready to. I’d promised her I’d go slowly, and I meant it. But right now I wanted to move heaven and earth to help her, to kill with my bare hands whoever had done this to her, had made her feel this way, so sad and upset.

“Baby, baby, it’s okay.” I said the soothing words over and over to her, until the sobbing became weeping, and then soft whimpering.

Finally, she pulled away from me. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her nose was pink. And my God, she’d never looked more beautiful to me.

I was in deep. So deep. I hoped I could deal with the baggage she was so clearly carrying.

“What can I do for you?” I asked. “Anything? A cup of tea?” I handed her the box of tissues. “Glass of wine?”

She shook her head, sniffling and taking a tissue. She blew her nose loudly and then grabbed another and wiped her eyes. “I must be a complete mess.”

“You look beautiful.”

That got a smile out of her. “Now I know you’re lying to me.”

“Never.” I touched her hair.

“I’m so sorry. I never cry. I’m serious. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s okay to be emotional, baby. I sometimes have that effect on women.”

That actually got a chuckle out of her. I was on a roll.

“But seriously. Is there anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head. “I’m good. I just had a dream. Well, it was more of a nightmare.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure? I’m a good listener.” I smiled.

She swallowed audibly. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Oh.” I held back a sigh. “All right.” I couldn’t force her to tell me anything, of course, but for some reason, I wanted to know what had upset her. And then go eliminate it from the universe. Anything that made Ruby Lee cry had to go. Simple as that.

“Could you excuse me for a minute?” she said.

“Sure. Of course.”

She got up and went into the bathroom, closing the door. I heard the water running in the sink for a few moments, and then it shut off. I figured she’d come back out momentarily, but instead the whoosh of the shower made its way to my ears.

A shower? In the middle of the night?

Should I join her?

I waited a few minutes. Maybe she was just going to rinse off. I’d give her some space. After ten minutes, though, I started to worry.

I got up and went into the bathroom. “Baby?”

Then I heard her quiet sobs. She was in the shower scrubbing her skin with a shower pouf. I opened the glass door.

“Ruby? Please, let me help.”

“Have to get him off me,” she wept quietly. “All of his filth. All of his grime. I’m contaminated. Contaminated with his disgusting filth.”

“Baby, you’re clean. You can’t wash anything else from you.”

“I have to. He’s inside me. He’s…part of me.” She continued scrubbing herself.

“Who, baby?”

“My father. Theodore Mathias.” She stopped scrubbing and looked up at me. “Who else?”

I took the opportunity to gently take the shower pouf from her clasped hands. “Let go. It’s okay.”

She reluctantly let me take the soapy pouf from her. I rinsed it off under the pelting water and then set it aside.

She was still quietly weeping. I didn’t know what to do, so I just held her, the water still pummeling us. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I said nothing.

After a few minutes, she pulled away. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For having this silly meltdown. You’d think I was some drama queen teenager. This isn’t me.”

“I know it’s not you. Not the normal you. We all break down sometimes.”

“You don’t.”

“Are you kidding? After what my brother went through to save me? I’ve done my share of overthinking it, believe me.”

“There’s a big difference between overthinking and having a meltdown in the shower,” she said.

“Not so much.” I moved toward the faucet. “Okay if I turn this off now?”

“Yeah. I suppose I’m as clean as I’m going to get.” She gave me a half smile.

I opened the shower door and grabbed two big bath towels. I wrapped her in one, dried her off as best I could, and then wrapped one around my own waist.

“You want to come back to bed?” I asked when we were both dry.

“Maybe I should just go home.”

“Look, if you don’t want to sleep in the same bed with me, that’s fine. You know that. I’ll set you up in a different room. But I’m not letting you drive home when you’re obviously so distraught.”

“No,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘no?’ You can’t drive right now. It’s the middle of the night. You’re a cop, for God’s sake.”

She let out a tiny laugh. “I mean no, I don’t want to sleep in a different room.”

Warmth spread through me. I hadn’t realized, until she said it, how much I wanted to share my bed with her for the rest of the night. I wanted to protect her from whatever was bothering her.

“You want to talk about this now? About what brought this on?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather forget about it.”

“Okay. For now.” She would have to talk to me—or someone—about this at some point. She was an intelligent woman. She probably already knew she couldn’t keep it inside forever.

I walked her over to the bed. She lay down, and I got in beside her. I opened my arms to her, and she snuggled into my shoulder.

“You smell so good,” she said.

“Well, I’m squeaky clean now,” I said.

She let out another soft chuckle. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I’m a nice guy.”

“But I’m such a mess.”

“Baby, I’ve been around messed-up people my whole life. You’re not even close.” I pulled her closer to me.

We lay there for a few moments, and I listened to her breathe softly. My cock was growing hard, just having her so near to me, but I knew she didn’t need sex.

So I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt tiny kisses on my shoulder.

My cock hardened further, and I was ready for action.

I pushed her away from me slightly. “Are you sure you want to do this? Because I won’t be able to stop if we go much further.”

“Yes,” was all she said.

I pulled her to me and kissed her gently. I worried she wasn’t ready for more, but I didn’t need to be, because she deepened the kiss, exploring my mouth with her tongue, all around my teeth and gum line, the inside of my cheeks.

She was kissing me more fervently than she ever had before.

It would have been so easy to let her continue, to fall into her beautiful body and make love to her.

But damn, I wasn’t going to be anyone’s escape. I cared too much for her for that.

So I stopped again. “Ruby, I don’t feel right about this.”

“Oh? I’m…sorry. I thought…”

“Don’t get me wrong. I want you big time. I’m hard as a fucking rock. But right now, you’re trying to escape something. This isn’t the way to do it.”

“No, I’m not—”

I silenced her with two fingers to her lips. “Come on, baby. You were just in the shower not half an hour ago trying to scrub the filth out of your pores.”

She sighed. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you now.”

“Oh, I believe you want me. I just don’t think it’s for the right reasons.”

She let out a laugh. “So what? So what if it’s for the wrong reason? What if I am trying to run from something, and running into your gorgeous body with one of the toe-curling orgasms you give me feels right? What’s wrong with that?”

She was offering me a free fuck with her tight little body, her succulent lips on mine.

Shit. That was the problem. I didn’t want to be just a fuck to her.

“You’re new to this. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”

“Look, I may be inexperienced, but I’m thirty-two years old. I’m educated, I’m street smart, and I’ve seen things that most people would never want to see in their lives. I’m not naïve, nor am I ignorant.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you were.”

“Then why won’t you be with me? Why won’t you give me the comfort I crave?”

“I will always give you comfort. Let’s just lie here for a while, and if something happens, it happens. I just want you to think about it first.”

Frankly, my own willpower was shot. All I could think about was getting balls deep inside that hot little pussy. But damn it, I cared about this woman. I desperately wanted her to talk to me about what had brought on the meltdown.

She sighed and lay back down in the crook of my arm. “All right. Let’s just lie here together.”

My cock was tenting the sheets. No doubt she had noticed.

A few moments later, her breathing became shallow. She had fallen asleep.

---

Ruby had her red lips around me. Her little pink tongue slithered around my cock, wetting me, poking into my tiny slit. Then she wrapped her lips around my glans and sucked, short little tugs, and I imagined shooting my semen into her throat.

God, so good.

I shot my eyes open.

The comforter had been thrown to the bottom of the bed, and Ruby was down between my legs, her pretty, dark lips around my cock.

I’d thought I was dreaming.

Reality was so much better.

She sucked and she slurped. She was new to this. I knew that. But my God, I felt like a teenager getting his first blow job.

Her naïvety was a plus. She wasn’t sure how to please me, so she just did everything. And consequently I was about ready to spurt down her throat.

“Easy, baby.”

She took her lips from my cock—I whimpered at the loss—and looked at me. “I know men like to come in a woman’s mouth. I want you to know… It’s okay to do that.”

God, what a fantasy—to come down her hot little throat, watch her swallow all of me.

But I wasn’t quite sure she was ready for that, no matter what she said, and I wanted to come in her sweet cunt anyway.

“Baby,” I said. “Come sit on my cock. Ride me.”

I had no idea what time it was, so I glanced at the clock radio on my nightstand. Five o’clock in the morning. My normal wake-up time, but not on Saturdays.

She crawled on top of me, her beautiful tits bouncing, and positioned herself on top of my cock. Slowly she sank onto me, soft sighs coming from her throat.

I clenched my fists and grimaced, holding back. I could shoot so easily right now. But I needed to see her move on top of me. It was still dark outside, but moonlight streamed in through my window, illuminating her.

Her dark hair, dark lips. She was a goddess, and oh my God, I wanted her.

“Now move on me, baby. Make it feel good.”

She began gyrating her hips, first in circles and then up and down. Then a combination of the two.

She looked so sexy. She gripped me so tightly, hugged me so sweetly. And then she did something I didn’t expect. She grabbed my hands that were at my side, brought them up to her tits, and cupped them in my palms.

“What do you want, baby?”

“Play with them,” she said shyly.

“While you fuck me?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Say it, baby. Say the words. Tell me what you want me to do to you while you fuck me.”

She closed her eyes. “Play with them. With my…breasts. While I…fuck you.”

I almost squirted into her channel right there. I cupped her beautiful peach breasts, thumbing her nipples ever so slightly. She gasped, moving on top of me harder and faster.

And all I wanted, in that moment, was to love her until the sun came up.

The sun wouldn’t be up for almost an hour, but that was okay. I wouldn’t last much longer, but after that I could make her come. And come. And come.