42. Forty-two
In the middle of the houseboat in damp clothes, I’m terrified. It’s smaller than before, like the rain is making it shrink, and soon, there won’t be enough oxygen for both of us.
As the drops pelt on the metal walls, its rhythm races that of my pulse. I don’t need to ask what’s about to happen. I already know.
Despite all the ways my body is begging for this man to make it feel good, I’m frozen. I haven’t had sex in eighteen months, and suddenly, I am both highly aware of this and extremely self-conscious.
Ethan is a perfect specimen, and I’m just… not. For two decades, the only man who’s seen me naked is Travis. By the time he died, we were far from the nervous kids we were when we met. He knew my body better than I did. He watched me stretch and soften with pregnancy and age, yet always seemed to know what I needed without me ever using words to say it. We fit like a favorite pair of faded blue jeans.
The wild anticipation that drove us when we were younger had been replaced by a comfortable longing after years of practice. And while I expected that to be boring when I had imagined growing old with someone, it wasn’t. It was a familiar kind of pleasure.
Here, in this room, I’m an inexperienced kid all over again. Only this time, I’m forty-one and hyperaware of the lines that have been drawn on me with a paintbrush wielded by the hands of time.
I watch his chest rise and fall with his breath as he closes the space between us with a small step. We aren’t touching, but it’s the only thing I can think about. His hands on me. My mouth on him.
“I… I haven’t done this in a while and…” My voice is a trembling mess. “I might be, you know, bad, or something.” I pull at the hem of my shirt.
He lifts my chin with his knuckles, his gorgeous eyes meeting mine. “You could never be bad, Nel,” he says, barely above a whisper.
Then his eyes drop to my mouth and my lips part like an unspoken invitation.
That’s all it takes. He knows. He presses his mouth against mine in a kiss that steals away what little breath I have left. Every swipe of his tongue feels like water in my lungs, drowning me slowly into the entirety of him.
Heart be damned, I want this more than I need to walk away from him unscathed.
The softness of our kiss turns to a frantic fury of tangled tongues and nipping teeth. His hand fists my hair, and the way he tugs it, just enough to let me know he has me, makes the blood in my veins turn hot.
We knock into the table and a chair falls as we stumble past. When I laugh into his mouth, it’s only for him to steal it with another deep, hungry kiss.
Arms overhead, my shirt is off. Hands at my waist, my jeans drop.
A trail of what we’re doing covers the short distance to the bedroom.
“Nel,” he says against my skin, making my whole-body clench at the rough way he says my name. “I’ve wanted to do this from the first night we met.”
I say something, but I’m not sure what. The ache that’s forming in me is the only thing I can focus on.
My bra drops next. Before I can even think about feeling uncomfortable, his hands replace it while his lips, tongue, and teeth never stop scraping across my skin.
The fact that I’m nearly naked, and he is fully clothed is both extremely unfair and undeniably hot.
When he gently pulls and pinches my nipple, I whimper. Once again, he’s undoing me with just a touch. Once again, I don’t care. He gives me everything I don’t know to ask for in every way as his fingers glide across my skin.
His hungry mouth replaces his hand, and I run my fingers through the thick hair on top of his head.
“Ethan…” His name is a breathy beg on my lips as my head drops back. I want more. I need more.
His hands are everywhere, his mouth is everywhere, and I can feel how hard he is for me. For us.
He pulls his shirt over his head, and I trace the dusting of hair that covers his broad chest and subtle ripple of abs. When I get to the bulge in his pants that is making my entire body throb, I drag my fingers along the outline of it.
The guttural moan he gives me from that touch alone feels like a reward across every inch of my skin.
His hands grip my ass, lifting me up, and dropping me onto the bed—there’s an urgency in the way he moves. A neediness.
My back to the bed, he kneels in between my legs, leans over, and cages me in with his arms. His normally bright eyes are dark as he hovers over me, and the way he kisses me isn’t polished or practiced—it’s wild.
Frantic.
Desperate.
His kiss is my mood.
He skims one hand down the line of my breast, the dip of my waist, and in between my thighs, where he rubs lazy circles around the spot that needs him the most.
“You like this.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. A fact proven by how my body writhes beneath him, how the thin piece of fabric of my underwear gets wetter as he rubs, and how the only sounds coming out of my mouth are gasps and whimpers.
My back arches off the bed as his hand works me to the edge with the help of his mouth, sucking his way across my breasts and up my neck.
“Ethan, I’m not going to last very long.” The words are as strangled as the sensation I feel, and it’s so severe it’s borderline painful.
“You don’t have to,” he says, breathy and hot against my skin, driving me to rock against his hand frantically and on reflex—primal reflex.
He pulls my underwear to the side and slides in one finger, then two. That’s all it takes. I shatter with a scream that fills the room while he watches me fall apart like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. My fingers dig into his back as the orgasm sweeps through me, fierce and fast.
His lips find the tender spot on my neck where he works his tongue in a way that sends chills across my already satisfied body, and the beginnings of a second orgasm start to swirl from that alone.
The way Ethan Mills uses his hands and mouth on my body is a religious experience. He kisses the spot between my breasts, resting his lips softly just above my heartbeat.
“You’re so pretty, Penelope.”
The simple sentence makes warmth curl in my chest and spread in every direction.
I reach down with shaking hands to unbuckle his belt and fumble with his zipper. I’m struggling to get air in my lungs, but he’s hard and ready, and I can’t wait one minute longer to know how he’s going to feel inside of me.
Clothed, the man is hard to look away from, but naked, Ethan makes me physically quiver.
He kneels above me, hooking his fingers in the sides of my underwear before slowly sliding them down my legs, studying every inch of me like he’s trying to commit my body to memory. When he swipes a finger in between my thighs, a fresh shot of desire burns through me.
He leans off the bed, opens the drawer of his nightstand, and grabs a square foil wrapper.
A condom.
A condom?
Despite every hot thing he’s done, and I have no doubt what he is still planning to do, a laugh bubbles out of me.
“Is that a condom?” I ask, hiding my smile with my fist as I lay back on the bed.
“What else would it be?” His eyes narrow as he bites the edge to rip it open.
I laugh as I say, “I didn’t know anyone over the age of twenty-two used these.”
“What are you saying, Penelope?” His face is so tense with desire it’s almost dark.
The laugh dies on my lips, and I swallow hard at the view of his very hot, very naked, very turned-on body that’s above mine.
“Nothing, I don’t know. I just never thought about it. I mean, I’ve only been with one person for a really long time and then no person for a really long time. But you’re you, so I guess that makes sense, you know? And I’ve already made sure I’m not having a baby this late in the game but—”
My words come out a nervous babble. During sex. I would have thrown myself overboard if I didn’t want him so badly.
“I’m clean,” he cuts me off. “Just tell me what you want me to do right now because I don’t think I will last another second with you being perfect and naked and me not being inside you.”
I don’t think—I can’t. I grab the condom, drop it on the floor, and wrap a hand around his neck to pull his mouth against mine. It’s reckless, but fuck it. I’m already being burned alive, and if we’re doing this, there isn’t one part of him I’m not going to feel.
He’s at my entrance, concern etched on his face as he hovers above me.
“I’ll be gentle.”
No. I shake my head. “Don’t.”
So, he doesn’t. With a firm push of his hips, he’s in me, stretching me slowly, and I arch off the bed with a cry.
It hurts but in the best kind of way.
He pauses and searches my face. He’s waiting for me to tell him I’m okay. Damn him for being considerate when I want him to be anything but.
“Don’t you dare stop.” The words are a needy demand as I tilt my hips and pull him in deeper.
With a low growl in his chest, he’s in me—moving in ways that make me sob out his name. When he withdraws, it’s only to fill me up again. And again. Any shred of self-consciousness melts away with every rock of his hips and hungry kiss he brands on my skin.
My body molds into his as he thrusts into me. Over and over and over. It’s too much and not nearly enough.
Our mouths are gaspy mingles interrupted only by desperate pleas.
He grips my hips, flips us over, and digs his fingers into my skin as he moves me on top of him. My rocking starts slow, adjusting to the new position and how he fills me up so fully I might die. I lift off him until just the tip of him remains inside me before sliding down on him so hard it’s difficult to differentiate between pleasure and pain.
Then I do it again.
And again.
“Fuck, Nel.”
His fingers dig deeper into my hips, and his head drops back.
Every move pushes me closer to my undoing.
In another flash of movement, I’m on my back, and he crashes into me with a thrust so hard it feels like I’m being ripped in two. But if the hard length of him doesn’t break me, the orgasm that shatters through me afterward certainly does. The scream that comes out of my mouth is as foreign to me as the blurred edges of my vision.
He slams into me one more time before he shudders, emptying completely into me with one last rock of his hips. He rounds forward, his skin slick with sweat and his breath shallow, dropping his forehead to mine as we roll to our sides.
His eyes search mine as we face each other, and my palm settles on his chest. Breaths steadying.
“Your heart is pounding.” I smile.
He mirrors my movement. “So is yours.”
His eyes crinkle as he nudges my nose with his.
“That was amazing.”
“Eh.” I say, with a bored tone, biting my cheek to hide a satisfied smile.
“Oh really, Penelope?”
His fingers trace the line of my hip gently before grabbing my ass with a squeeze that makes me yelp.
“Guess we’ll just have to keep trying until I get it right.”
Then his hands, mouth, and body are on mine, and we do it all over again.