Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ELLIE
I’m sitting on Douglas’s sofa, sipping tea, when he appears in the living room doorway.
“Twins asleep?” I ask.
“Aye.” He drops down beside me, slides an arm around me, and presses his lips to the top of my head. “So, are you going to fill me in on today?”
I let out a breath and tell him about Leah turning up at the library, which immediately makes him tense.
But I assure him that I didn’t let her get to me, that I stood my ground and said my piece.
I also admit that I mentioned Leah might get a bit of money out of a divorce.
“I know it wasn’t my place to say that. I’m sorry.
It just slipped out in the heat of the moment. ”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re not annoyed?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m proud of you, for standing up for yourself, and for me and the twins too.”
I squeeze his knee.
“Did you go to your mum’s today?” he asks.
“Aye.” I talk him through the visit and all that was said. When I admit I told her I can’t keep being the only person in her life, my words catch because I love my mum, and saying it felt cruel even though it was necessary.
Douglas brushes his knuckles across my cheek. “You’re not pulling back altogether. You’re just saying she needs to accept help from others too. That’s not unreasonable, Ellie. Not even a wee bit.”
After that, the conversation drifts to easier topics: his day on the boat, the usual twin antics. We’re just two people sitting on a sofa and catching up.
At some point, though, the mood shifts.
Maybe it’s the way I turn my head to look at him. Maybe it’s the way his hand comes up to brush a strand of hair from my face. Whatever it is, we suddenly aren’t talking anymore, and Douglas’s gaze drops to my mouth. I wet my lips without thinking. His eyes darken.
The kiss starts slow. His mouth is warm, and his hand slides to the back of my neck, cradling me there. I press closer, my palm flat against his chest, feeling the solidness of him through his shirt.
It doesn’t take long for the kiss to deepen, heat building between us.
I part my lips for him, and he makes a low sound in his throat that goes straight through me.
His free hand slides down my side to the waistband of my jeans.
His other hand joins it there, and his fingers find the button, then the zip.
He looks up at me, checking I’m okay with this.
I lift my hips to help him ease the jeans down, along with my knickers.
He moves from the sofa onto the floor, kneeling in front of me. My throat goes dry at the sight of him there.
His hands move to my knees, and he guides my thighs apart, opening me to him. Heat floods my face, but I resist the instinct to close my legs. I force myself to stay still, to let him look.
When he finally speaks, there’s something almost reverential in his tone. “Christ, Ellie.” He swallows, his gaze firmly fixed between my thighs. “Look at you.” He moves closer, his breath warm against me. “I’ve been thinking about having you like this in front of me.”
His thumb traces along my inner thigh, so close to where I’m aching for him. A sound escapes me—part whimper, part moan. Douglas’s lips curve, then he lowers his head.
He takes his time, reading me instinctively and attentively, the same way he reads the sea.
His tongue circles my clit in slow, deliberate patterns that have me gripping his hair.
Then he closes his lips around the swollen bud and sucks.
Oh God. The scratch of his scruff against my inner thighs sends sparks racing up my spine.
His tongue dips lower, pressing into my channel, and I hear myself make a sound I don’t recognise.
His mouth returns to where I need it most, and as he sucks there, a finger brushes me, teasing me.
My whole body jolts. He slowly presses it inside me, and paired with the steady work of his mouth, it’s almost too much, yet somehow still not enough.
I’m suddenly teetering, every nerve in me drawn tight, my grip in his hair turning desperate.
I press my other hand over my mouth. The twins are sleeping upstairs, and the effort of staying quiet while Douglas does that is both agonising and exhilarating.
When I come, it’s with my teeth sunk into the heel of my palm and my thighs clamping around his ears, my whole body arching off the sofa in a wave that crests and breaks and leaves me trembling.
Douglas stays with me through it, gentling and slowing until I go boneless, my chest heaving.
He presses a kiss to my inner thigh as he eases his finger out. Then he sits back up beside me on the sofa, one hand resting on my knee, his thumb stroking idle circles on my skin.
I’m still catching my breath when I reach for him. Douglas catches my hand and shakes his head, bringing my knuckles to his lips. “Tonight was about you,” he says. “Just you.”
I look at him. His cheeks are flushed. His hair is wrecked from my fingers. And there’s a very obvious situation happening in his jeans that rather undermines his selfless declaration.
“Douglas Fraser, if you think you’re going to stop me from playing with your cock, then you’ve got another thing coming.”
He lets out a surprised laugh and releases my hand, and that’s all the permission I need.
I reach for his jeans, and he doesn’t stop me this time.
My fingers find the button, work it free, then ease down the zip.
Douglas shifts, lifting his hips just enough to help me tug down his jeans and then his boxers, his cock springing free.
I wrap my hand around it, its thickness familiar now, and stroke him deliberately, watching what I’m doing with open fascination.
The way his cock responds to different pressure—firmer here, lighter there.
The way the flushed red head appears and disappears in my fist. The way his body tenses when I tighten my grip.
His head drops back against the sofa. His breathing turns ragged, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
One hand grips the armrest beside him. The other rests on my thigh, squeezing reflexively as I work him.
He’s trying to stay quiet, but small sounds escape him anyway.
A grunt, a sharp exhale, “Fuck!” muttered through clenched teeth.
Soon his hips move, pushing into my hand, chasing the rhythm I’ve set.
His balls draw tight against him, and I feel the telltale pulse in his cock.
I adjust—firmer, faster, my thumb sweeping over the head on each upstroke.
Douglas’s hand clamps down on my thigh. His breath catches.
He manages a warning—my name, rough and strained—and then he comes, spilling hot over his own stomach, his body shuddering, his face cracking open with release.
I watch all of it, every second, then lean over and kiss him. It’s not a passionate kiss—it’s a loving one, soft and unhurried while his breathing steadies and his hand comes up to cup my face.
I go to the kitchen and come back with damp kitchen roll, which I use to clean him up. Douglas watches me do it.
Afterwards, once we’ve pulled our clothes back on, we sit together for a while, my head on his shoulder, his arm around me.
“I should go,” I murmur.
“Do you have to?”
I let out a soft chuckle. “Yes. Much as I’d like to stay, you’re up and out the door early, and I don’t want to be here when your parents are getting the twins ready for school.”
“Probably wise,” he admits.
He walks me to the front door, his hand warm on the small of my back, and gives me another kiss before I leave.