Chapter 8
BABS
My brain short-circuits with lust. Wanting him in such unholy ways, my body heats up.
The rigid discipline I live by is slipping away.
For one suspended moment, I brace for the shame, the guilt, and the disgust to overtake me.
Overtake him. But when his tongue slides over my lips, insisting on more, none of those things happen.
My fingers move, but not to push him away like they should, to curl into the front of his trousers, bunching the fine fabric to grab ahold of his very hard cock. He groans with a hunger that I feel in my core, into the very place where his cock belongs.
His fingers on my chin tighten a fraction, angling my face to plunge his tongue deeper. Seeking mine to tangle and dance with. He tastes sweet. Sticky champagne and fruit.
The hand covering mine at his crotch encourages me to move, to stroke him through the fabric. To take things further than a simple kiss in the dark with a roomful of art patrons and press that would die if they knew where I was and what I was doing.
This is not discrete.
Not careful.
It’s tempting and dangerous to feel desirable to someone who’s seen me at my best and worst. Who’s heard all the rumors, seen the evidence firsthand of my failed marriage, and still wants me like a starving man wants food.
It’s heady and addictive. Calling to parts of me that have long since been dead.
Awakening a desire for me and within me that can’t be tampered with any longer. A sound escapes me, unbidden. A quiet, desperate moan that betrays just how long I’ve gone without being kissed like this. Touched and wanted like this.
My other hand winds around his neck, fingers slipping into the soft hair at his nape. It’s damp with heat and exertion. My nails drag just slightly, needing something to anchor myself to ensure this is real and happening while my world spins off its axis.
His hand leaves my chin, cups my cheek instead.
His thumb traces along my jaw, reminding me of his sketch.
He drew me with such softness, almost reverent.
Not at all how I see myself, but a better version to him, I assume.
Seeing myself through his looking glass shifts things.
Where I see someone too young, he sees a romanticized version.
A lie unto itself, as I am not her. Physically, yes. Mentally and emotionally, no. She’s unencumbered and vulnerable. Open and fragile. I’m none of those things. Or haven’t been in a long time.
I want to be what he sees. Want to return to the woman who used to look and feel like that.
I press into him. Not out of seduction. Out of need for what I’m feeling now and what I want to feel from then.
His hand falls away from mine. The rhythm to his liking as more groans pour out of him and into me. It’s erotic and taboo.
My body is on fire. My core drips into my damn shapewear. I feel more alive than I have in years, decades, even. My resolve is equally warring. Feeling myself surrender, piece by piece, to a young man who was never supposed to touch me, let alone kiss.
But none of that matters because this isn’t about who he is or who I am. Not about the name on the marble plaque inside. Not about being someone’s mother or an ex-husband’s first wife.
It’s about being a woman. Desired by a younger man.
Making me feel things I desperately need and forgot about.
It’s about feeling alive and unburied. He jumps back with a loud groan, breaking our steamy kiss and forcing my hands to fall away.
He’s surprised, eyes wide and staring from his pants, to me, and back. I’m confused and weary.
My hand comes to my throat in search of the necklace I didn’t wear.
“Hollister?”
His name is a breathy question. Clouded in sensual lust that pulls his eyes back.
“I came.”
His hand palms the front of his pants. His cheeks tinge red, possibly from embarrassment if he’s saying what I think he’s saying.
His confession sends more wetness out of me.
I tilt my head in inquiry, trying to reconcile with the idea that he's so affected by me that he couldn’t control himself, which is intoxicating. I step closer, my voice low and sultry.
“You came just from that?”
He loosens his tie and unbuttons his shirt, despite the cool night. A sheepish grin appears on his face, relaxing his shock at the unexpected turn of events. His breath is ragged when he nods.
“I want you. Just the taste of you and the feel of your hand on me.” He shakes his head as if not understanding it himself, “I didn’t think we’d ever happen. I mean, I hoped, but yeah, I just came.”
I laugh.
Not polite, as society demands, but a gut-busting, belly laugh. The kind from years ago, when I was unencumbered.
His laughter joins mine. A richness to it that knots in my stomach. The tension between us shatters. What remains is an intimacy that's even more dangerous. His eyes sparkle with amusement and something darker, more intense.
“You're beautiful always, but even more beautiful when you laugh.”
I don’t miss the huskiness in his voice. The step he takes toward me despite the mess in his pants.
“I want to make you do that more often.”
I calm my laughter, but the smile stays plastered on my face.
“I haven't laughed like that in . . . I don't even remember,” I admit, my hand drifting toward the middle of my body to catch my breath and calm my composure. His hand is back at my chin, lifting it and holding it simultaneously.
“I’m glad my premature ejaculation makes you laugh.”
I chuckle again. The irony of his words is not lost on either of us. His hand moves to cup my cheek, and I lean into it.
“You make me feel things, Hollister,” I confess, suppressing the urge to reach for him as he keeps doing to me. “Things I haven't felt in a very long time.”
He lifts my hand, kissing the top, and places it against his chest. Needing the connection, I was denying both of us.
“I want to make you feel more, Barbara. I want to make you feel everything.”
My breath catches. Knowing we crossed the line with that kiss was one thing. The accident in his pants, more him than me. But what he wants next requires me to be an active participant. Something I’m still unsure of, even after committing and backing out.
Even after his countless attempts to bridge the gap between us. Meeting me far more than halfway. Isn’t this what I always wanted in a man and never got? Yet I keep getting hung up on his age and his association with my son. It’s two enormous points I struggle with.
“I know you’re scared. I see it on your face. I know the reasons. Same as mine. But I just can’t seem to stay away. I can’t seem to walk away from what I’m feeling. I think you struggle with that as well.”
I move my head away, feeling too visible in this moment. I need more time or a rational reason to continue this when I have so many real reasons to deny my feelings and walk away, like I always do and always have.
He’s still holding my hand against his chest, right over the beat that betrays him. Steady, strong, yet thrumming with want. It makes my pulse skip. Like it’s trying to match his rhythm. As if my body already knows how to fall in sync with his, even when my mind is still arguing.
I pull my hand from his and turn away. Put my back to him. Feeling too visible. Too vulnerable. I close my eyes, and his words echo through my mind.
I want to make you feel everything.
Everything I’ve denied. Everything I’ve pushed down in the name of responsibility, decorum, survival.
“Barbara.”
His calloused palms glide down both sides of my arms. The heat of his chest penetrates my back. What’s meant to be comforting is actually disturbing.
I open my eyes, focus on the twinkling garden lights at the edge of the veranda’s railing.
I shake my head, but he doesn’t listen. Doesn’t let go.
Just waits, silent and present. The way no one else in my life has ever done or does.
It breaks something in me. Something that I’ve wanted to say to someone for so long, but never had the person.
Why I’m trusting him with it, I have no idea.
Maybe it’s my attempt to push him away, yet again.
“I spent so long trying to be what I was supposed to be.” The years of restraint punctuate every word.
“The good daughter. The loyal wife. The poised mother. I kept the house pristine, my appearance perfect, the family in line, and the Barrett name spotless. I covered for his affairs, pretended not to notice the looks, the whispers, the pity.”
I turn back to him.
His mouth sets into a line. His eyes bore into me as if knowing more than he lets on. Perhaps he does. Maybe Dominic opened up to him, whereas he never has with anyone before. Then again, I doubt that to be the case with how closed off my son remains with everyone.
Tonight was no different, as he barked at his best friend over me. An odd threat for a son who spends more time scowling at me than listening, or God forbid, loving me.
“No one ever asked me what I wanted. Not once. Not really.”
My voice cracks, leaving me confused as to why all this is coming up now.
Why am I tearing up at the most inopportune time and the most inconvenient place?
His thumb and index finger capture my chin, forcing me to look directly at him when all I want to do is avoid his gaze. At least until my confession is over.
“I’m asking, Barbara.”
I bite my bottom lip, the vulnerability threatening to drown me. I refuse to let these tears fall and rapidly blink them to recede.
“I don’t know how to want something for myself. Not without guilt. Not without feeling selfish and wondering who I’m hurting by doing so.”
His expression darkens, not in anger or desire but in ache. His fingers lower from my face. I breathe a sigh of relief. Battling my words and his touch is a bit too much.
“You wouldn’t be hurting anyone. Dom doesn’t know what this is. And honestly? He doesn’t need to. He doesn’t get a vote in your happiness.”
I flinch at the mention of my biggest concern. If Hollister were my age and a stranger to my family, it would be easier. The concerns would die before they ever could grow.
“I’m not asking you to walk back into that gallery holding my hand or anything. I’m not asking you to burn down your life for me.”
His hand finds mine again, content to hold it loosely.
“I’m just asking you not to put out the fire before it gets a chance to light.”
“I’m tired of calculating every move before I make it. I’m tired of pretending I don’t want to be touched,” I murmur, barely audible.
My hand tightens in his. He instantly grips harder. Confirmation that I’m reaching out to him for once. Then I say the one thing I’ve never said. The one that costs the most to admit.
“I want to be seen. Really seen. And with you, maybe I am.”
We stand there in silence, possibilities dancing in the air between us. This time, I lean in. Run my hand along the lapel of his coat before wrinkling thousand-dollar wool as I drag him in with the force of my need. This time it’s me who kisses him first.
Not soft, sweet, or demure.
Hungry.
Years of managed silence, polite smiles, and impenetrable poise, collapsing into one searing moment when my mouth finds his. I don’t kiss him like a woman unsure of what she wants. Or one who is worrying about the age difference or the fact that he’s my son’s best friend.
No.
None of that matters.
I kiss him like I’ve been starving for attention, to be desired, and to be considered attractive enough to take the risk. The risk of losing it all to feel alive and seen again. My tongue twists with his, demanding and sucking with a boldness I’ve buried my entire life.
His groan rumbles against me. I push him back until his spine meets the column.
Then I press in, our bodies flush until there is nothing polite or respectful about this moment.
His cock is hard again, pushing into my stomach.
My mind flutters with possibilities. All the things I could teach him, he could teach me.
I moan as thoughts come racing in, demanding more of him and this.
I steal the breath from his lungs. Bite his lower lip just enough to make him gasp, then soothe it with my tongue. He said he wanted to make me feel everything, but I want to take everything.
His hands grip my waist like he’s trying to survive me. It tickles my brain and tightens my core. I’m not kissing him like a woman testing boundaries. Those stopped existing the moment he came in his pants.
The champagne on his tongue lingers on mine. His cologne is light, barely there, but still envelops my senses. His body is now hard everywhere. His hands grip with restraint or perhaps to ensure this doesn’t end. Either way, he’s addictively young and devastatingly handsome. Entirely him.
Our moans are getting louder. His hands slide over my back, embracing me tighter, anchoring me to him. When I finally pull back, we’re both breathless. Staring in surprise at the level of chemistry flowing between us.
A blush appears on his cheeks in the romantic lighting here. My hand slips off his lapel to rest gently on his taut chest. His fingers press into my flesh, knowing he has to let me go, but reluctant to do so.
“Holy mother of sin.”
Low and reverent. Felt in my chest and in between my legs. His cock twitches against my stomach, ready to continue this if things and places were different.
The corners of my mouth lift. Not the careful kind of smile I give to society women across white-linen luncheons. This one is feral and free.
I lean in, brushing my lips against his ear, my voice velvet-wrapped wickedness.
“Definitely not your mother. Certainly a sinner.”