25. Lizzie
TWENTY-FIVE
LIZZIE
Elbow deep in cookie dough, I glanced up at the sound of the doorbell. I was already late on my Christmas cookie schedule and a little on edge knowing Sean was out on a date with Cindy, so my first reaction was to sigh and hope whoever it was would go away.
But the doorbell rang again, so I washed my hands and called out, “Give me a second!” before heading down the hall toward the front door. In the long, skinny window beside the entrance, I saw the shadow of a man. A peek through the peephole made me rock back on my heels, a frown tugging at my brows.
I pulled the door open. “Sean. What are you doing here?”
His eyes were dark—darker than I’d ever seen them. His skin was red with the chill of the outdoors, and he said nothing as he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. “Kids here?”
I shook my head. “At their dad’s.”
He nodded, took a step to close the distance between us—and kissed me.
It was a shock. My hands flew up to his shoulders. My lips parted, and Sean took advantage. His tongue swept against mine and tore a groan from my throat. I felt the press of the wall at my back and realized he’d caged me against it. His lips devoured mine until my head spun circles around me. When he moved to kiss my jaw and neck, I inhaled a gasping breath.
“What—”
“Been wanting to do this for weeks,” he said, his hips pressing into mine.
“You have?” The shock was evident in my voice.
Sean pulled away, his hands framing the sides of my neck while his thumbs coasted along my jaw. His eyes crinkled at the corners, but they were still dark as sin. “Yes, Lizzie.”
“What’s happening right now?”
“I’m kissing you.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, and then he made good on his promise. He kissed me until the ground fell away from my feet. Until it was only the wall at my back and the warm press of his body at my front keeping me tethered to the earth. When we came up for air, I said, “Date was no good?”
“The date was fine. This is better.”
I blinked. “Oh.”
His lips coasted over my neck, lingering over the point of my thudding pulse. I blinked up at the ceiling as my hands kneaded his shoulders, then moved to trace the prickly-soft hair at the nape of his neck. When Sean let his hands slide from my neck to my collarbones, I shivered.
It had been a long time since I’d been touched like this. I leaned my head against the wall and clung to him while he stroked me, palms dragging down to feel my breasts. His thumbs stroked up along the soft flesh, and I let out a trembling sigh.
“You feel so good, Lizzie. I’ve been dreaming of touching you like this. Can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I think I might have fallen and hit my head. Am I in a coma?”
He huffed a laugh, his breath brushing against my lips. Then he ran his hands down my sides to my hips, where his thumbs ducked under the hem of my shirt to stroke against the soft flesh of my lower belly. His forehead came down against mine, and he pressed a kiss to my lips, just the barest brush of his mouth against mine.
“I want you.” His voice was a rasp.
I gulped. “Oh.”
“Want you so bad I can’t think straight.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” He pulled back to meet my gaze. “Do you see, Lizzie?”
“Well, the boner makes a lot more sense now.”
His laugh was just a sharp exhalation, and then he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and brought my hand down to his crotch. His erection strained against his zipper, hard and hot and throbbing. “Does this make sense to you, Lizzie?”
“Not really.”
“Not really?”
I curled my fingers around his cock, stroking along the placket of his pants until I felt the base of it, then all the way back up to the tip. My own body reacted in an instant, heat and wetness surging between my legs. My skin felt stretched taut, too sensitive. I couldn’t think. Then I stated the obvious. “You’re hard.”
“As stone.”
“Yes.” I stroked him again to make sure. “You are.”
He was hard—for me. He’d wanted to kiss me for weeks. All those moments that I’d thought he was interested hadn’t been in my imagination.
The first man in years to catch my eye wanted me. His hands coasted over my body like he thought I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He touched me like he couldn’t get enough. He kissed me like he wanted to memorize the taste of my lips, like he was desperate for me.
I’d never felt anything like it. I was off-balance. I was falling.
His hand slipped from my wrist and found its way between my legs. I sucked in a hard breath when he cupped me there, pinning me to the wall with his touch. He closed his eyes as he stroked me just like I stroked him, a trembling breath slipping through his lips. “I want to fuck you, Lizzie. I’m sorry if that sounds crass. But I want to feel you come on my cock, want to taste you, want you to rake your nails down my back.”
“You’re supposed to be on a date with another woman.”
His touch became more insistent, the heel of his hand grinding against my clit. His eyes opened. “No.”
“No?” My voice was a breathless tremble.
“No.”
I stood on a precipice. He was all wrong for me. We didn’t fit. He was Adonis, and I was just me. I didn’t have time for a man. I was terrified of giving too much to him and having my heart broken.
But he touched me like he needed me, and my body reacted. Heat swept through my stomach and down to my thighs. Everything went tight as a bowstring inside me as he stroked me through the fabric of my jeans. Even with layers of fabric separating us, his touch felt intense. I hadn’t been touched like this—with raw desire and lust and need—in a long, long time.
My hand hadn’t stopped tracing the outline of his hardness. A cock that throbbed because he wanted me . Sean dipped his head and kissed me again, stroking my tongue with his, pulling back to nibble at my lower lip.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you?” he asked.
“I—” I gripped his cock through his pants. “I think I can tell.”
He huffed again and shook his head, his lips coasting against my cheek, down to my jaw. “No, Lizzie. You have no idea. I dream about you. I’ve been thinking about your body since Thanksgiving. Every time you set me up with someone else, I compare her to you. Every time you laugh, I want you more. I can feel how hot you are,” he continued, squeezing between my legs. “So fucking hot, Lizzie. You drive me insane.”
“I do?” I blinked.
“Yes.” His eyes were fully dark, just a blown-out pupil surrounded by the thinnest ring of color. He stroked between my legs again, and suddenly it wasn’t enough. I didn’t want just his hand on top of my pants. I wanted his hands on my skin. I wanted his mouth. His cock. I wanted all that attention, all that lust, to bear down on me and make me forget that this was a terrible, terrible idea.
His breath ghosted over my lips. “Let me fuck you, Lizzie. Please, baby. Please.” His voice trembled as he begged, and I’d never felt so powerful or so turned on in my entire forty-one years of life.
I nodded, unable to form words.
“Yeah?” he asked, breathy and low.
“Yes,” I managed.
Sean’s fingers were quick. He unbuttoned my jeans and shucked them off with a flick of his wrist, underwear and all. I stepped one foot out of them, holding his shoulders for support, while his hand slid between my legs. Groaning at the feel of my arousal, Sean swore under his breath and stroked me until I was a trembling mess.
Need ripped a gash through the very core of me. I leaned against the wall and spread my legs, holding onto him for stability while he stroked me until I was a quivering mess. I made little breathy noises, gasping and moaning with every touch of his fingers against my clit. And when he slid his fingers inside, the sound of his groan nearly undid me.
He was on the brink of wildness because of me. My body. My sex. My skin.
“Need you,” he gasped, lips against mine. “Need you so bad.”
My mind spun. I couldn’t figure out how we’d gotten here. Didn’t know what path I’d taken that had led to this moment. But his fingers teased my folds and rubbed against my bud, and any attempt at thought went through my head like sand through a sieve. My body was on fire. I panted as he curled the fingers of his free hand around my thigh to spread me wide. We both looked down to watch when his fingers slid down to my opening and thrust inside me once more.
“Oh,” I said, and Sean groaned. His teeth ran along my jaw until they found my earlobe, and he bit me while his fingers drove in and out of me. I balanced on one leg, the other curled high on his hip, while my breaths became big gasping pants.
“You’re so wet and hot and so fucking soft, Lizzie.” His voice was a growl at my ear. “Can’t wait to feel that all around my cock.”
“Really?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’m—”
“You’re what?”
“I just… My body…”
“Is perfect.” His fingers slid inside me as he pulled his face away from mine. The heel of his hand ground against that sensitive bundle of nerves. I bucked, and Sean exhaled. “Your body drives me crazy, Lizzie. Watching you makes my mouth water. Touching you is making me lose my mind.”
“Oh.”
“So when I tell you I can’t wait to feel all of you around my cock, do you believe me?”
He added another finger. The stretch of it was the best thing I’d ever felt. “Yes,” I breathed. “I believe you.”
“So you’ll be good and let me fuck you like I’ve been needing?”
I nodded, lips trailing kisses on his cheek while my fingers fumbled with the buckle of his belt. I pulled it loose while he pleasured me with his fingers, his other hand gripping my thigh so hard I wondered, distantly, if it would leave a bruise. I wanted it to. I wanted to be able to press my fingers to it and remember how it felt to have him spread me open like this.
We were still just a couple feet away from my front door. Moving was out of the question. Moving would require him to stop touching me. It would require me to use my legs to walk.
Sean swore again and helped me with the fly of his pants, then dug through his pockets until he found his wallet. He pulled out a condom and dropped the wallet. Credit cards and cash went tumbling across my entryway. Neither of us paid them any attention.
My hands shook, so it was difficult to help him with his pants. We managed to get them down to mid-thigh before he gave up and tore the foil packet with his teeth. I watched him sheathe himself, my breath shaky, loving the way those big hands wrapped around his thick cock.
There was no romance. No preamble. Nothing but raw, animalistic need between us. Sean grabbed my thighs and hiked me up the wall. I was shocked at his strength, and another wave of lust and longing tore through me. I’d never been manhandled like this. Never knew I wanted it quite this badly.
“Lock your ankles behind me,” he commanded, and all I could do was obey. Then his hand was between us to position him where he needed to be, and his eyes rose up to meet mine. His lips were parted, wet from our kisses, and I heard his soft exhale the second before he drove himself inside me in one long, steady, inexorable thrust.
I moaned. The back of my head hit the wall as my fingernails dug into his shoulders. He held my thighs and rocked into me until his hips locked against mine. The stretch of him inside me was so intense I saw stars. My breaths were short and sharp, and I could think of nothing at all except the feel of his body joining with mine.
“Lizzie—” He shuddered. “Lizzie, you feel so good.”
“Yes,” I panted. “Yes.”
Then he began to move. His head ducked down to the crook of my neck, teeth rasping against my pulse, and the only sounds in the house were our mingled moans and the slap of wet flesh against flesh. His hands dug into my thighs while his mouth gusted harsh breaths against my neck.
I’d never had sex like this before. I’d never been picked up and fucked against a wall. I never knew I wanted it so damn bad, to be pinned and used and cherished all at once. To be wanted so desperately that I could feel him coming undone with every stroke of his cock inside me. I found his mouth with mine and scraped his bottom lip with my teeth. He paid me back by thrusting into me hard and fast, the press of the wall behind me making every rock of his hips more intense.
This was not the staid, routine lovemaking I was accustomed to. It wasn’t even like the hard quickies I used to enjoy at the start of my marriage, before things fell apart. This was wild and rough and mindless. It was something more than sex. It was raw need, stripped of everything that could blemish it. Pleasure in its purest form.
I loved the way his hands sank into the soft, dimpled flesh on my thighs. Loved the way he bit my jaw, my lips, my neck. Loved the way he rasped my name like he could imprint it against my skin with his voice.
I came like a supernova. Crying out, I could do nothing but cling to him and ride it until the end. Distantly, I heard Sean groan. I heard him praise me, tell me how good I felt, how much he’d dreamed of this, how much better it was than he’d imagined. I heard him tell me he loved my body. That he was obsessed with the feel of me pressed up against him. His voice drove me on until my body was made of light and heat and pressure, and then I felt him go still and tense with one last hard jerk of his hips against mine.
Aftershocks of pleasure coursed through me as I felt him reach his own peak. I was dazed, mindless.
When Sean went still and loosened his grip on my thighs, I unhooked my ankles and let my feet fall to the ground. That’s when I realized there was no strength in my legs, and I slid down the wall until I was seated on the floor, stunned.
Sean leaned a shoulder on the drywall above me, then rolled to his back and slid down beside me. His breaths were deep and harsh, and I glanced over in time to see that his head was tilted back against the wall and his eyes were closed. He swallowed and peeled his eyelids open, blinked a few times, then turned his head to look at me.
I don’t know what he saw. My mind was in pieces, and I was sure I looked like a mess. My hair fell down in clumps around my shoulders, half of it still in the messy bun that had previously kept it out of my face. My shirt was askew, and my pants and underwear were still hooked around my left ankle.
Thought was difficult; speech was impossible. I licked my lips and tried to form words, but I had no idea what I was supposed to say.
Sean saved me by reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. He angled my chin up and kissed me, soft and tender, with one thorough lick of his tongue against mine. That kiss shocked me more than the sex did. It made me wonder what, exactly, had just changed between us.
Then he leaned his forehead against mine and said, “Something smells like it’s burning.”