14. Graham
14
GRAHAM
I wake with my dick throbbing. My room is dark, and I hear soft breaths—feel them, too—on my shoulder. There’s a hand on my inner thigh, rubbing along the crease of my groin. And then I smell her perfume…and rum.
I gasp, gripping my cock, shifting away.
“Please, babe. Let me touch you.”
“I don’t—” Words won’t come, and my thoughts feel like they’re moving through sludge.
“Graham, I need it. Please. I’ll make it so good…”
What the fuck is happening? She needs it ? Me ? Since when? I’ve known Avery nearly two years, and this has never once come up.
“How much did you have to drink?”
She gloms onto my back, her hand sliding between my thighs again. I close my eyes, and the ache in my cock intensifies. What did she do to me?
She rubs her body sensually against my back. A grind. “Liquid courage,” she murmurs. “I didn’t know you slept naked. Can I touch it?”
I don’t normally sleep naked. I fell asleep after…well… It was anot her lonely night while she went out with friends we don’t share.
In a moment of weakness, I give in, needing something . “Yes.”
The burn of Silas hasn’t worn off even after five days. I cancelled my gym membership, and while I didn’t expect to hear from him, I think part of me hoped I would.
I’ve felt so fucking alone since our last training session. Alone in my desires, alone in my life, alone in my bed.
I don’t know how drunk Avery is, but I trust her. She’s all I’ve got, and maybe she can ease some of this ache that only seems to keep piling up inside me.
Her thin fingers wrap around my length. “ Fuck …” she sighs. “You’re huge.”
I’m not huge , but she does seem impressed. I wish she’d stop talking, though. It’s impossible to pretend she’s not a woman with her bony, hairless, sweet-smelling body pressed to mine, but her obvious desire is appreciated.
I ignore my misgivings and thrust through her small fist, the same way I do my own. Should I touch her? Do I want to?
“Use your mouth,” I tell her, my voice rougher and huskier than I intend. I’m thinking of the blow job that never was from Silas. Also, if her mouth is full, she won’t be able to talk. Maybe then I can imagine someone else is sucking me.
“Mmm…yes, sir.”
She disappears beneath the covers, and I part my thighs to let her between them. She runs her hands up my legs and swallows half my cock.
Immediately, I’m wrapped in wet warmth. “Ahh…fuck.”
It feels incredible. If it were Silas under there, I’d come in two seconds, but she’s more or less quiet, and I’m able to imagine it’s him. I’d kill to feel his rough stubble on my balls, but she’s all I’ve got, and maybe it’s time I settle in and make do. It’s only right. She’s my wife, after all.
As a former escort herself, Avery’s no stranger to giving head, and her experience shows. She uses her hands and her tongue so well, electricity is popping off my skin. “That’s hot,” I babble stupidly.
The compliment causes her to double her efforts. She sucks harder, slower. Her long draws and swirling licks across my tip have me pulsing to come.
Then, just when I’m about to let go and fall over the edge, she removes her mouth.
I huff, a groan escaping me as I reach down to finish myself. My hand meets her ass.
What?
No.
She sinks onto me and clamps down hard—her pussy muscles even stronger than her mouth. This shocks me. Mentally, I’m out—horrified and slightly reeling—but my horny dick has other ideas. She rises and falls, facing away from me, like she knows seeing her face will only make it worse for me.
My hips move like they’ve got a mind of their own, bucking up into her. “You better be on birth control because I’m about to?—”
“Wait—not yet?—”
“Are you?”
“Yeah, babe, I’m so close.” She grinds down on me, and my stupid, helpless body thrusts up again.
“On birth control, Avery,” I say sharply, the definition of on edge.
“Yeah—Fuck…so big…yes. Babe you can come in me. I’ve got an implant.”
Relief clouds my consciousness. I ignore the concept of what’s happening and let my body feel it. She feels good. Working me like a pro. I come, panting as my dick unloads while she rubs herself on me and brings herself to her own ending.
“Ugh…fuck…” I groan, vacillating between satiation and violation .
That was… wrong .
Will she expect it again? Do we need to have a talk?
No. What the fuck am I thinking? She’s my wife . I just proved I could have sex with her and climax. I’m not attracted to her, but in the dark with all the wet holes and her clever handling… it worked .
Can I really afford to be picky?
No. In fact, I should tell her to get the implant removed and keep at this. Legitimize all of this now that I know I’m capable.
“You did good,” she says, having a seat between my legs and facing me.
I try to smile, but it feels more like a grimace. Her messy hair is at odds with her perfectly made up eyes. Her lipstick is smudged, and that makes sense, I guess. Avery’s pretty. A natural pale blonde, she’s got fine-boned features and cat-like green eyes. A slightly pointy chin and lips that are on the thinner side, make her look ethereal—like a pixie or something. Her breasts are fake, but they’re an average size. Her body is narrow through the hips, lacking curves. She told me once she’s sample-sized, meaning she can fit in designer clothes the way a runway model can. She’s not overly tall, though. Five-seven.
“How’d it feel?” she asks.
I toss the question around in my mind. Hating my answer, questioning everything I thought I knew about myself. But the truth is the truth. “Good?”
“It’s not wrong to like sex, Graham.”
“I don’t have much to compare it to,” I confess.
“Would you do it again?”
“Like…now?”
She laughs softly. “Like…ever.”
When I don’t respond right away, she goes on. “If you’re worried about getting turned on, I have tricks.”
I raise my brows. “Yeah?”
She runs a hand through her hair, getting the majority of the tousled mass out of her face. I see her better now—lit with the bluish glow from my window overlooking the city. I would have married her even if she weren’t so pretty, but she is. The kind of women older women envy—the kind that makes them lament their lost youth.
“We’re married, right?” she says.
I nod, figuring I already know what she’s going to say.
“And it’s really too risky to fuck around on each other. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get through your first term without a scandal—maybe even a re-election. Also…” And she layers her next words with various levels of meaning. “I’m thirty .”
Message received.
She’s offering me exactly what I need to cement a career in politics. A family—a respectable life. She’s even gone so far as to prove I can have it. I’d truly be an idiot to say no, even if I don’t know where this is coming from, or if she’s planned it all along.
“You want kids?” I ask.
“Don’t you?”
I might have once told her I did. I thought I did. But my chest feels hollow as I realize I have the chance to paint a picture of a perfect life that I can hang on a wall and not have any explaining to do to anyone.
I flashback to the night in the Plaza. The feral, clawing need. The freedom. The way I’d wanted to kiss Silas so much then and so often since.
But that was one night. Forbidden. Secret. Illicit. It wasn’t real life. And it’s not like I’m faced with constant temptation outside my tablet.
“Don’t take the implant out yet,” I say, “but I’m willing to see how it goes.”
Her face lights up. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
She tackles me in a hug. I grunt, rolling her off me and moving to lie on my back while she snuggles into my side, her hand stroking my bare chest. “It’s the right thing to do Graham. We’re awesome together. It’s gonna be perfect.”
I can’t deny it. She’s right.
As I stare blankly at the ceiling, something vital inside me dies, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to bring it back to life.
It’s definitely dead, but it’s not forgotten. Seeing Silas in the lobby the following night rocks me back on my heels. I’m running out to grab—well—some lube from the convenience store across the street, and I’m so lost in my head it doesn’t even occur to me he might be here.
He looks— fuck .
Really good.
Better than any man on my tablet, better than the last time I saw him, better than anyone I can think of. His deep set, dark eyes bore into me like he knows exactly where I’m going and why and also what a clueless joke I am as a human being.
He’s everything good and everything horrible all at once. I underestimated how much I’ve been thinking about him. I guess the harder you try not to think about something—it still counts.
“Senator,” he murmurs, standing to walk me to the door.
“That’s not necessary,” I say, walking quicker.
“You no-showed Friday,” he says.
I ignore him, pressing the bar to open the door. He locks a hand around my wrist.
I make no attempt to shake it off.
“Do you really want it to be like this?”
It has to be like this. I’m moving on. I’ve practically written my new life story. He shouldn’t even rate a footnote.
“You won’t even look at me?” Silas asks, sounding as put out with me as ever. The way he speaks to me makes my blood heat— and I wish that meant it makes me angry, but it’s not anger I feel when he’s standing this close—touching me.
I keep my eyes trained on his hand. His olive tan against my slightly paler arm. His proximity is…
He’s too close. My skin tingles with a nearly overwhelming need to be closer. I press harder on the bar to open the door.
He tightens his grip. “Do I owe you an apology or something?” he asks softly.
“No.”
“Then why are you ghosting?”
Because I hate myself enough without watching someone hate me back. “I have an errand I need to run.” Which I don’t remember anymore. My mind is whited out. Nothing but static with a heartbeat.
“You’re on your own again tonight?”
What? What is this? Are we having a conversation? I turn a glare his way, and it hits him dead on. In it, I pour all the haughty condescension I learned from my upbringing, and in no small part at Harvard, too.
His lips part, looking vaguely surprised. And then he frowns in confusion. “What?”
“Let go of me.”
“I can tell I pissed you off—do you mind explaining why?”
“I do mind,” I say in the firmest tone I can manage.
“You really don’t like to be teased, do you?”
“Teasing? That’s what that was?”
He shifts and lets go of my arm. “Maybe I read the situation wrong.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about. I sigh heavily and make a choice to engage with whatever this is. “What does that mean?”
“Forget it.”
“Silas, do you half ass everything the way you half ass dealing with me?”
His gaze narrows. “That’s a shitty question. ”
“You’re an asshole,” I say, all in. “Bad fucking luck we have to keep running into each other, but we don’t have to know each other. Leave me alone, and I’ll return the favor. Deal?”
“What? Wait…”
I press open the door, but it doesn’t close quick enough for him not to follow me onto the sidewalk. “It doesn’t need to be like this,” he says.
“I’ve got nothing to offer you.”
“I respectfully disagree.”
“Then what? What can I do for you? You’ve got my attention.”
I swear he squirms. “You’re right. Maybe now’s not the time.”
“Fuck,” I bite out, turning my back on him and bolting down the sidewalk, no clue where I’m headed.
I don’t expect him to follow me, and he doesn’t. When I return twenty minutes later, he doesn’t even look up from the desk.
I clear my throat to get his attention. He’s got a point. I don’t want it to be like this, either—knowing each other the way we do and acting like strangers. If he can’t say it, then I can. I decided this much while I was out.
I clear my throat. His eyes flick to me and then away, but I have his attention.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “Things have been strange, and I didn’t mean what I said—about not wanting to know you.”
He swallows and glances up at me, for longer this time.
“For what it’s worth,” I say slowly, “I wish I’d made different decisions, but I didn’t. But I don’t regret anything with you. I wouldn’t change it.”
He looks grim. Resigned. “I guess it isn’t worth much, huh?”
I don’t think he’s trying to be cruel, but the words land heavily, regardless. “I guess not.”
“Goodnight, Senator.”
I back away from his small desk. “Goodnight.”