42 - THE PEACE GARDEN
Lacey
He called at a little after one, the dead middle of my shift, the floor gone quiet. It was the third extra night I'd picked up that month.
"Beautiful girl. Are you working?"
"I'm working."
"Come outside. Just for a little while. I'm down the street and I missed you and I can't stand it."
"I have twenty minutes," I said. "Maybe thirty."
"Thirty is a lifetime. Come."
He was leaning on the low wall by the staff entrance, hands in his jacket pockets, and when he saw me, his whole face opened like I was the only thing on the street worth looking at. He kissed me before I'd finished crossing to him, one hand coming up to the side of my face.
"Walk with me," he said. "I want to show you something."
We went down the dark side of the building, past the loading dock, to the little gated garden the hospital kept for families, the one with the brass plaque and the donor names, locked after dusk, no way to it from the street.
He had the gate open before I'd thought to wonder how.
High hedges, taller than us both. A barely lit serpentine brick path winding between beds gone to seed. Quiet enough to hear our own feet.
"Look at this," he said, turning in it, delighted.
"A peace garden. They built it so people could fall apart in private, and tonight it's ours.
" He drew me in by the hand, walking backward, pleased with himself for finding this place, settling us near the back wall.
"You can see anyone coming from the gate.
We could be the last two people on earth. "
It was beautiful. The hedges held the dark close and soft, the path ran open both ways, and I was still carrying the night before around in my chest like a stone, the wanting unsatisfied.
And I wanted this, if I'm honest. The wrongness, the sheer audacity of being a really bad girl, now taking over.
The S word reared its head, accusing, demeaning.
Yes. Only a slut would do this. The open air, the small clean thrill of where-we-shouldn't, the maybe of being seen that never quite turns into the fact of it.
Ricardo didn't question. He wanted what he wanted out loud and took it for granted that you did the same.
He glanced up once, past me, his eyes moving slowly along the top of the wall, corner to corner.
"What are you looking at?"
"Making sure." He smiled and brought his eyes back to me, his hands already at the buttons of my coat. "No windows. We're good."
There weren't any windows. I'd looked too.
His breath had already gone short, his hands not quite steady on my buttons.
"You're on top," I said.
I lay back on the cool brick of the walkway and pulled him down over me, coat still on.
He shoved it open, yanked my shirt up, and shoved my bra above my breasts in one greedy motion.
His cold hands closed over them, squeezing hard, and his mouth dropped to a nipple, sucking it deep and wet, teeth scraping just enough to make me gasp and arch up into him.
"God, finally," he muttered against my skin, already working my slacks and panties down my hips.
I lifted for him, helping, the small shame of how quickly I did it flaring.
The night air hit my bare sex, cold and shocking, and then his fingers were there, pushing between my lips, finding me already slick and swollen.
He made a low, pleased sound when he felt how wet I was, like he'd proven something.
I was horny and raw and a little furious at the man who'd found my wire then rejected me. Ricardo was a man who only wanted, with nothing under it, no wire, no game, just a man who was going to fuck me on the ground because I'd let him.
"Condom," I said, voice rough. "Now."
He fumbled in his pocket, tore the packet with his teeth, and rolled it on fast, breathing hard, almost clumsy with urgency. The second it was on he pushed my knees wider with one hand, lined himself up, and drove into me in one hard thrust.
I bit down on the sound that tried to escape.
It wasn't gentle and I didn't want it gentle.
He filled me thick and deep. Cold brick dug into my back while the heat of him covered me, and for a few seconds I was all the way there, hips lifting to meet every thrust, greedy, the word slut arriving right on schedule and not slowing me down at all.
Yes. Like this. Dirty and outside and wrong. His cock slamming into me, the cool air making my nipples ache while he fucked me like he couldn't wait another second.
I was climbing fast, the edge right there. I clenched around him, chasing it.
And then I felt him start to go, too soon. His rhythm broke apart. He drove in hard, twice, three times, quick and selfish, buried his face in my neck and shuddered, and stilled.
That fast. He was done almost before I'd started.
I lay under him, still keyed, still climbing, the ache sharp and unfinished between my legs, right at the edge he'd taken me to and then abandoned me.
My clit throbbed, neglected, my hips giving a tiny, involuntary roll against his now-softening cock, desperate for friction that wasn't coming.
He was heavy and slack against me, spent, his breath slowing, and I stared up past his shoulder at the black hedges and the sliver of sky and could have screamed with how badly I still wanted, and how completely it didn't matter to the man on top of me.
He pushed up off me and got to his knees, fumbling the condom off and tucking himself away, not quite meeting my eyes.
"Sorry. God. You just— I couldn't." A boy's laugh. Then, lower, almost to himself: "That was amazing. That was so amazing."
For him.
I pulled my bra back down over my breasts, the fabric scraping over still-hard nipples, and worked my slacks up over my hips. The useless wet of me was cold now, my thighs slick, my back cold where the brick had been. I stood on legs that didn't feel like mine.
I straightened my coat and said nothing. He kissed my forehead tenderly, told me to text him.
I went back inside and washed my hands too long at the scrub sink, staring at myself in the steel. My clit was still up somewhere it hadn't been allowed to finish aching, swollen and ignored.
I dried my hands and went back to my patients.