After the best evening I’d had in a long time, I’d gone home with Mick against my better judgment, breaking my own rules about not doing that sort of thing. I could say it just happened or he forced me or make some excuse for our behavior, but the real reason was that we both wanted to. It was a dangerous combination of need and want.
As soon as we arrived at his plush condo, lust seemed to fill the room, making it impossible for us to get farther than the large wooden door. We’d clawed at each other’s clothing as my legs went up around his waist. We didn’t talk about it or analyze it, we only acted on whatever crush of feelings was bearing down on us.
In my mind, it would be a one-and-done type of thing. I would get this urge, this itch, out of my system, and then would go back to my sad existence with a great memory to look back on when the sadness got too heavy.
Except, now Mick was asking me to have special names for him. For me to be the only one to call him by his given name.
After we’d had the hottest quickie known to man against the wall in the hallway, my bra still on and the rest of our clothes scattered all over the foyer, Mick carried me to the couch and laid me down. He tossed a blanket over me before walking to the kitchen, his ass on full display, and grabbed a bottle of red and two glasses.
He didn’t mention the fading bruises on my thighs and back. He ran his hand gently over a scar on my hip, and after the fact, I realized he hadn’t gripped that hip when he thrust into me against the wall. Our wineglasses sat half full on the ivory lacquered sofa table behind the plush navy velour couch, their high quality leading me to guess that Mick had an interior designer.
“Come here,” he grumbled with authority, and I flipped over, sliding up his body until our mouths met. It was an intimate move usually perfected over time.
He nipped at my bottom lip, and I moaned with abandon like we were a well-oiled sex machine. My desire for him rose again, and I started to convince myself this needed to be the one-and-done arrangement I’d expected it to be.
Then Mick’s palms ran down my back, causing a greater stirring in my belly and goose bumps to break out all over my skin. It was a level of closeness I wasn’t sure I’d ever achieve again, and I wasn’t ready to toss it away.
“Goddamn, Margo, this ass,” he said, squeezing the subject at hand. “You know I’m into all parts of you, but when you walked away from me that first day, I couldn’t take my eyes off your ass.”
Smiling, I closed my eyes and savored Mick’s gentle touch.
“I’m hard again. Like a goddamn teenager,” he said into my ear, his voice raspy while his breath feathered over my earlobe, wreaking havoc on my nerves.
Crawling out of my skin with need, I said, “Take me.”
That’s all it took before he rolled me to my back and crawled down in front of me, his mouth meeting my core. Between the scraping of his teeth and his skilled tongue, I went off in a matter of minutes.
I should have been embarrassed, but I couldn’t stop reveling in the moment.
Before I could return the favor, Mick was inside me, pushing deep, filling all of me. Somehow, he’d managed to wrestle on a condom while I was coming down from orgasm heaven, and now it felt downright decadent again.
I hadn’t meant for us to get to this place, this position, this anything without setting some ground rules. Yet here we were, and I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“You feel so good,” he told me, sliding in and out at a snail’s pace, making sure I felt every thrust.
I babbled some nonsense about ecstasy, and then said something vaguely like, “Harder, please.”
Mick didn’t need to be persuaded, and immediately did what I asked or begged for.
After a few harder thrusts, we were both hitting our moment in unison again like a well-rehearsed pair. We rode it out together until we were sated. I kept waiting for awkwardness to set in, but it didn’t.
Sipping our wine after the second time, Mick mentioned he was off to Chicago for a meeting next week. “Wish I was staying in Boston, then we could continue this,” he said matter-of-factly, like there was athis.
“It’s probably for the best,” I said quietly.
“You say that like you’re going to poof out of my life at any second,” he said, calling me out on my shitty answer.
Standing up and snatching my clothes from the floor, I started to get dressed. “Unfortunately, I am. This can’t happen again. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
This time, the guilt and shame were no longer tiny tingles but full-on lightning rods, lighting up my every vein. My feelings were as heavy and stark as the stainless kitchen behind me. I was a bad person. Period.
“I need to go. Can you call an Uber?” I was almost fully dressed. Rumpled, but dressed.
“I can ride with you—”
“No worries,” I said, finger-combing my hair into a low ponytail. I’d freshen my makeup in the Uber. Not that anyone would be home to notice, but still.
Mick tapped at his phone, mumbling, “Just a few minutes away.”
