4. Graham
GRAHAM
The workshop is compliant.
Every item on the violations list, corrected.
The ventilated storage cabinet is mounted on the far wall, fragrance oils organized by flash point.
I came by Thursday morning to help her anchor it into the stone, and she organized the oils herself while I wired the exhaust fan above the melting station.
It hums now, steady and correct. The emergency exit is clear, the path unobstructed, the push bar functioning.
The Class B extinguisher I mounted two days ago is exactly where I left it, inspection tag facing out.
I check everything twice. Then I check it again, because checking things is what I do when I don’t want to think about why I’m still standing here.
I sign the compliance form and tear off her copy. “You’re clear.”
She takes the paper. “Thank you.”
The transaction is complete. The file is closed. There is no professional reason for me to be in this workshop again, and we both know it. That knowledge fills the space between us with a silence that isn’t uncomfortable. It’s a dare.
“Stay,” she says.
I should go. But instead, I look at her face and set the clipboard on the workbench. I reach behind me and turn the deadbolt without looking away from her.
She pours me tea from a kettle I didn’t notice on the back shelf. Something herbal, dark, no sugar. I hold the mug in both hands and stand in her workshop surrounded by wax and flame. She waits. She doesn’t push. She just gives me the quiet and lets me decide what to do with it.
“I was eight,” I say.
She goes still.
“House fire. Electrical, in the walls. Middle of the night. My parents got me and my sister out. Nobody died.” I take a breath.
“Everyone says that. Nobody died. You were lucky. And we were. But the house was gone. Everything in it, gone. And the rebuilding broke my parents apart in a way the fire didn’t.
Insurance, temporary housing, the fighting.
My dad left two years later. My mom held it together, but holding it together was all she had left. ”
The mug is warm in my hands. The pilot flame on her melting station is burning low and blue, and I’m telling a woman I’ve known for three days the thing I’ve never said out loud to anyone.
“I became a firefighter because I needed to be the person who stops it. The chaos. The moment where everything changes and nobody can control it. I needed to be the one who controls it.”
“And you walk into my workshop,” she says quietly, “and fire is everywhere, and I’m standing in the middle of it treating it as ordinary.”
“Yes.”
“And that terrifies you.”
“Yes.”
She sets her mug on the workbench. She steps forward, close enough that I can smell the beeswax on her skin and the smoke in her hair, and she puts her hand flat against my sternum.
Her palm is warm. Her fingers are steady.
She’s touching the place where I hold everything, and she’s not trying to fix it or open it or take it from me.
She’s just resting her hand there. Letting me feel the weight of someone choosing to be this close.
I don’t pull away.
I lean in first, drawn by the steady warmth of her palm against my chest. Our lips meet—soft at the start, then deeper, hungrier.
The taste of herbal tea lingers on her tongue, and for a moment, the world narrows to the give of her mouth, the faint tremble in her breath, and the way her fingers curl into my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
She pulls back suddenly, eyes wide and dark in the low light. “Graham…I’m a virgin,” she whispers. “But I want this. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this—for someone who gets me. Who sees me.”
The words settle somewhere deep. My body tightens with want, but my mind recoils.
“Neve…your first time should be special. Not on a workbench after I just unloaded all my baggage on you.”
She doesn’t let me finish. She kisses me again, fierce and certain, and every line I’ve held snaps.
I lose myself in the heat of her mouth, in the press of her body against mine.
My hands slide down her back, pulling her closer, and the kiss turns desperate—lips and tongues and quiet, needy sounds that fill the workshop.
I wrench my mouth away, breathing hard. “Are you sure?”
She nods, eyes locked on mine, then turns.
With deliberate movements, she unties her apron and pulls her shirt over her head, letting both drop to the floor.
She walks toward the stone counter at the back of the shop, hips swaying with quiet confidence.
One smooth sweep of her arm sends the few jars skittering to the far end with a soft clatter.
She glances back at me over her shoulder, waiting.
I cross the space in two strides. She turns in my arms, facing me, and I grip her waist and lift her onto the surface.
Together, we work her shorts down her legs, then her underwear and shoes, until she’s bare from the waist down.
Then I reach behind her, unclasping her bra.
She shrugs it off, and she’s bare in front of me—flushed, open, trusting.
I lower my head and take one nipple into my mouth, licking and sucking gently until she arches her back with a soft sigh that goes straight to my cock. I trail kisses down her belly, over the curve of her hip, then along her inner thighs.
She trembles as I push her legs farther apart, her thighs soft and quivering under my hands.
I slide one finger inside her—slow, careful—feeling the slick, searing heat of her and how tightly she grips me.
A shaky whimper escapes her lips. I lower my tongue to her clit, licking in slow, firm strokes before sucking the swollen bud into my mouth.
Her reaction is immediate. A sharp gasp punches out of her, followed by a broken moan that echoes softly in the workshop. Her hips jerk up against my mouth, chasing the sensation, and her fingers thread into my hair, gripping tight.
I curl my finger inside her, stroking that sensitive spot while my tongue works her clit in a steady, relentless rhythm. Her breaths turn into soft, desperate pants—“Oh…oh God…”—growing higher and more frantic. Her back arches sharply off the rack, and her thighs start to shake around my head.
I suck harder, adding a second finger, and her whole body seizes. Her thighs clamp hard around my ears, and her hips buck as her inner walls pulse around my fingers in strong, rhythmic waves.
A raw cry tears from her throat—“Graham!”—long and throaty, dissolving into whimpering moans as the orgasm rolls through her. I keep licking her through it, gentler now, savoring every twitch and aftershock until she’s breathless beneath me.
I stand, pulse hammering in my ears. She reaches for me immediately, helping me shove my pants and underwear down my thighs while I yank my T-shirt over my head.
Her eyes move over me—hungry on my chest and my abs, then lower to my aching erection.
She wraps her hand around me and strokes, slow and reverent, like she can’t get enough.
I nudge her legs wider again and step between them. “Tell me if it hurts,” I say, voice rough.
I rub her clit with my thumb as I press inside her, inch by careful inch.
She’s impossibly tight, hot and slick, and the way her body stretches around me draws a groan from somewhere deep in my chest. She gasps—a soft, surprised sound—but she doesn’t pull away.
I watch her face—lips parted, eyes half-lidded with pleasure and a flicker of overwhelm—as I sink deeper.
“Fuck, Neve…you feel so good,” I groan, voice low and strained. “So tight and wet around my cock. Perfect.”
I keep rubbing her clit in slow circles, rocking into her gently until I’m buried to the hilt. The jars rattle on the rack with every shallow thrust as I work deeper. Her inner walls clench and squeeze me rhythmically, gripping me like she never wants to let go.
We move together—slow at first, then harder, deeper. The jars rattle against the stone in time with my thrusts. I keep talking to her, filthy and reverent, between kisses to her neck and mouth.
“That’s it, baby. Take all of me. You’re squeezing me so fucking perfectly… I can feel every little pulse.”
Her cries grow louder, turning into shameless moans that fill the workshop. “Graham…Graham—” she gasps, my name spilling from her lips every time I drive into her.
Her nails dig into my shoulders, leaving stinging crescents as her breasts bounce with each thrust. I watch them, mesmerized, then drop my gaze to where I’m disappearing inside her, the sight of her wetness coating me with every stroke nearly undoing me.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” I rasp, thrusting harder, the wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin mixing with the rattle of jars. “Taking my cock so well on your first time. I could stay buried in this tight little pussy forever.”
Her moans turn into broken sobs of pleasure. “Graham—oh God, Graham—”
She tightens around me again, clenching hard, and the sight of her face—flushed, eyes locked on mine, lips parted on a silent cry—combined with the grip of her body pulls me over the edge with her.
We come together hard, her walls pulsing and milking me as I spill deep inside her. Her final cry of my name echoes through the empty workshop, raw and perfect, while pleasure crashes through both of us in blinding waves.
Afterward, the workshop is dim. The pilot flame went out at some point, and neither of us relit it. The air still smells like wax and smoke and her, and I’m sitting on the floor with my back to the workbench and her weight settled against me, and I’ve never in my life let someone this far in.
She traces a line down my forearm with one fingertip. “You know you’re coming back tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the reason going to be this time?”
“I don’t have one.”
She laughs. It’s low and quiet—barely a sound—and I feel it more than I hear it. She presses closer, and I let her, and for the first time in years, I’m sitting in a room where a flame went out, and I’m not afraid of what happens next.