Chapter 29
Libby
Ilook good.
I’m not a vain person and I don’t say or even think things like that often.
More like I find a quirky new dress at a thrift shop or a funny t-shirt online and I buy it, not caring if it’s hot or in or age appropriate.
I’m not even thirty (yet), most things I can still get away with.
And this green and white striped dress I found at the mall is totally cute and actually fits my curves and, well, I look hot.
I also got my nails done and my hair deep conditioned and styled and honestly, I just feel lovely, and I want Dax to see.
Knowing the girls are at school and Dax is working from home, I head to his house. I don’t even call, which is also not really like me, but I want to surprise him. I’m even wearing heels, something I have a feeling he will love.
Sure enough, his car is there, and I head to the front door. I knock and I wait, clasping my hands together in anticipation. I rub my lips together to make sure they’re still perfectly glossed. I fix my hair a little and then stand still. Then my brow furrows.
It’s taking him a long time to come to the door. I ring the bell this time and wait again. Nothing. He’s not a napping man and I can’t imagine that he’d be taking a shower at one in the afternoon. Going for broke, I try the door. It’s unlocked. Also, odd. Either way, I decide to let myself inside.
“Dax?” I call through the house that smells like linen and coffee and kid things.
It’s cozy, warm, and homey, and I love it.
There’s no answer. But I do hear something upstairs.
I make my way towards his bedroom, a room I didn’t see the other day on my tour with the girls.
The door is wide open, and I can hear muffled noises coming from the lit but also open bathroom.
“Dax?” I ask again, much softer. As I step across the gray carpet, I can’t help but look at his bed.
The dark green comforter. The black sheets.
Everything is tidy and neat but there’s character too.
A guitar on the wall. I wonder if he knows how to play.
I picture his hands strumming, running up and down the fret board. It sends a shiver through me.
I decide to keep going before I get too excited and stop in front of the bathroom door. “Dax? What on earth are you doing?” The last part comes out more amused than I mean for it to, and I cover my smiling mouth with my hand.
Sitting on the counter is a store box of hair color. It’s blonde, though not the right tone for his hair. It’s open, the contents spread out by the sink and the instructions open like a map.
“My hair is gray.”
I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up from my throat. “Your hair?” I squeak.
“Is gray,” Dax grumbles again.
I look at his hair, mid length, currently a little messy (I love at home Dax. A sexy alternative to slicked back, at work Dax.) golden blonde and flecked with silver.
“Not…all of it…” I say with an encouraging smile, but Dax is not amused. His jaw is hard, and his mouth is turned down.
“I wanted to color the gray which I have no idea how to do because I’ve never had gray before, not until a few years ago.
I thought they would just blend in but they’re getting more and more obvious, which makes my age more and more obvious, and you’re beautiful and I thought, what the hell?
Why not mask them? But I can’t do that because I can’t even figure out the next step on the damn instructions! What the hell is developer?”
“Something, you don’t need,” I answer. I go over to the box and shove all the contents back inside. Then I fold up the instruction map and tuck that inside the box too and turn to Dax.
“Why are you suddenly worried about it?” I ask.
He looks at himself in the mirror, giving his reflection a critical look. “I never had gray hair before Tess died.”
I nod, my face softer. “I understand.”
“And it’s like, when it happened, things just spiraled out of control.
I had no idea how to take care of the house by myself, how to raise the girls by myself, how to work and be two parents by myself.
It’s the little things, you know? Like how to make oatmeal so it’s not too sticky and not too runny.
How to steal away a security blanket that has been dragged through the sandbox and needs to be washed.
Not to mention how to actually wash the thing without making it ball up.
It’s hair braids, kindergarten crushes, and heart shaped sandwiches. And the next thing you know…gray hair.”
I smile and grab Dax by the t-shirt, tugging him closer to me. “You are doing amazing.”
“My life is messy,” he says.
“Of course it is. It’s life. Lived in and genuine, realistic, and chaotic. It’s life.”
“I try to keep it organized. Because Tess did it so well. So effortlessly.”
“I doubt it was effortless,” I say. Then I look up at his hair, which I find to be very sexy. “Why are you suddenly so worried about it anyways?”
“I was at the gym with Kai,” he starts in, and I roll my eyes.
“Oh God. I should have known my punk ass brother was the culprit.”
“He was giving me shit,” he grumbles.
“That’s because Kai is a shithead. That’s his job.”
I smile up at him with a giggle. “I like your hair the way it is. I like you the way you are.”
After a moment, his frown tips back up into a smile. “You like me?”
“I do.”
“Well, that’s convenient,” he says. His voice smooths from irritated to warm and low, sending tingles through my body. Then he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into him. “Because I like you too. Also, you look incredible.”
“Thanks. I felt pretty.”
“You are pretty.”
Dax clips my chin in his fingers and brings my mouth up to his.
Our lips press together, warm, sweet, and soft.
But I know better than to think it’s going to stay that way.
As the kiss goes deeper, Dax brings his other hand up and tangles his fingers in my hair above the nape of my neck and lets out a small groan.
“How are you so delicious?” he asks.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” I say, running my hand down the definition in his abs. He’s in gym pants and a black t-shirt, worn and soft and sexy.
“How are you mine?” he asks, and my heart trips over itself for a moment as my brain works to wrap itself around that word…
Mine.
Before I have time to give it any more thought, Dax pulls his shirt up over his head and tosses it aside.
My hands instinctively undo the straps on my dress, and I shimmy out of it, letting it fall to a stripey puddle at my feet.
The kissing continues, frantic and hungry, and I press my palms to his chest.
“You’re sweaty,” I giggle. “Hot and bothered already?
“Not bothered at all. Hot, yes. I just got home from the gym. I probably need a shower…” he smirks down at me, letting the words hang in the air suggestively.
My smile must be answer enough because the next thing I know, Dax is pulling us over to the massively exquisite walk-in shower. He pulls a lever, and water pours down on us from three different rain shower heads.
I let out a scream and hug into him, my white bralette, and panties the only thing protecting me. “It’s not even warm yet!”
“I thought we were hot,” he chuckles, raking his hair back with his hands in a sexy, sleek motion.
“It was a figure of speech,” I say as the water starts to warm. I look around and shake my head. “This shower is ridiculous.”
“You don’t like it?” Dax asks, tugging his soaked pants off. Or trying to. Turns out guys’ work out pants are no easier to get off when wet than leggings are.
“Another figure of speech,” I say.
“Ah,” he grunts. “Sorry. All the blood seems to be rushing to the wrong head.”
He’s not wrong. Even in his pants-half-off dance, his dick is hard as a rock and ready for action.
“The fact you pulled us in here before we were fully undressed was literally ridiculous, not figuratively. Do you need help?”
Dax yanks at the leg of his pants and whips it free. He tosses it over the glass with a grin. “Nope! Now where were we?”
He pulls me into another kiss, stealing my tongue for a moment before showering my face, neck, and collar bones with more kisses. Heat rises inside me like the rising of a hot, high sun. One that will be a real scorcher. I can already feel the wetness dripping down the inside of my thighs.
Dax knows, or at least he seems to, because he grins devilishly at me as he moves on to my breasts. The thin satin and lace of my bra is now transparent through the soaked material, and my hard nipples are on full display.
“God I don’t know if I want you to leave this on or if I want to rip it off with my teeth,” he growls as he nibbles at my nipples making me whimper and writhe under the touch.
“This is my favorite matching set…”
“Then I won’t tear it apart,” he says. “I have enough access through the material anyways.”
Dax cups my breasts in his hands and flicks my nipples with his thumbs. He knows my body, my weaknesses and how to really drive me crazy, I’ll give him that.
“Dax…” I whine but he cuts off.
“Nope. I’m taking my time.”
“Do we have a lot of time?” I ask. “When do the girls get home?”
“Fuck,” he snaps and I giggle. He tucks his fingers inside my panties and peels them off, tossing them outside of the shower. But before he can jump to the point, I wrap my hand around his cock tightly and he groans.
“What are you–”
“Shhh…”
Dax watches me as I lower to my knees. His hand presses to the wall as I stroke him several times from base to head, making his knees shake, before covering him with my mouth. The water pours around me, and he smooths my hair back so he can see my face as I look up at him through my eyelashes.
“Your mouth feels fucking amazing, baby girl,” he says, and I tease the tip of him with the tip of my tongue. Just to get another husky groan out of him.
“Fuck me,” he lets out. “But also…fuck me. Literally, not figuratively.”
“This doesn’t feel good?” I ask in a purr.
Dax chuckles at that. “Oh, trust me, it feels good. Too good. But when I come, I want it to be because I can hear you scream.”
With that, he picks me up and I wrap my legs around him.
At first, I think we are going to do this movie style, him holding me, using only his Greek god muscles to bounce me on top of his dick, neither of us tiring or slipping and falling to a painful shower death.
It doesn’t seem wise. Dax is older than me, but he isn’t Life Alert old.
But to my relief, he backs up, making use of the built in bench. He sits down with me on his lap. His cock is pressed hard against me and with a little maneuvering, I gasp and he is inside me. The angle has me full; I can feel every inch of him against every inch of me.
“Jesus…” I pant.
“Is it too much?” he asks.
I shake my head with a smile. “No. It’s…a lot. But not too much.”
Dax starts slow, gently rocking his hips up against mine. He probably doesn’t believe me and to be honest, it’s a lot. The angle has me stretched around him, sweet, hot, and burning but oh so satisfying.
We flow in a rhythm, simply enjoying it at first and then picking up the pace.
“Goddamn, baby. You feel so good,” he grunts as my tits bounce in front of his face, my cheeks flushed from the steam swirling around us and my wet hair slapping my back with each drive. He thrusts harder and I tighten more around him, over and over until–
“Fuck,” I cry out.
“Yes?”
“Dax!”
“Are you going to come for me, baby girl?”
“Yes…”
“Come for me, Libby.”
I’ve never believed that’s how it works. Women can’t just come on demand. That is unless men know how to fuck like Dax does. In that case, they snap their fingers, and we fucking come like Niagara Falls.
Dax groans into my shoulder, biting into it, not enough to break the skin but definitely enough to leave a mark. As the release takes me, I collapse against him, holding onto him so I don’t slide off his lap.
“That was incredible,” he sighs, tilting his head back, both because he wants to look at me and because he probably needs air. I know I do.
“One question,” I pant, and he tips his chin up as a go ahead. “How is the water not cold yet? It’s like a fucking sauna in here.”
“Tankless water heater,” he says.
“Of course.”
I get out and wrap myself in a towel, wiping off the mirror to fix my makeup and hair the best I can without any of my own things.
My mind wanders to the thought of a woman being in this space.
This was a shared bathroom at one point.
And while there are no signs of that now, the idea of it lingers.
There were two toothbrushes and probably another hand towel.
The drawers most likely had makeup, moisturizers, and all the things women need to feel like women.
I pull my dress back on and look back at Dax in the reflection. He smiles at me as he gets dressed. “The girls need to be picked up soon. But you can take as much time as you need.”
“I’m good,” I tell him. “I can’t exactly go commando forever. I’ll let you do your thing and I’ll see you soon,” I smile.
He smiles back, kissing my shoulder and for a moment, we both stare in the reflection of us. Then he plants a kiss on my cheek. “Sounds good. Besides, you have packing to do,” he says.
Costa Rica.
How I almost forgot about that in the last hour, I don’t know.
As I drive home, the car is quiet, void of music or anything else so I can sort my brain. It’s not that I’m not excited about Costa Rica. I am. It’s not that our shower sex wasn’t beyond perfect. It was.
But it’s suddenly hitting me pretty hard.
This is a man who has known real love at its truest, deepest form.
A man who made two extraordinarily beautiful children from that love.
A man with a family, a routine, a world that I have never known.
And a man who knows loss. That part, I can relate to in my own way.
I’d be lying if I said it isn’t scary. Everything is happening very fast.
I’d also be lying if I said I’m not falling for him. And that’s the scariest part of it all.