16. Madison
— ? —
Madison
The east wing had the best light in the afternoon, and I was standing in what would become the main living room when Jason found me.
“There you are.” He came through the doorway with a clipboard in one hand and a pencil tucked behind his ear. “I’ve been looking all over. You ready for the walkthrough?”
“Ready.”
We started in the corner where the original fireplace had been bricked over sometime in the seventies. Jason ran his hand along the wall, knocking every few inches, listening.
Jason Sen was one of the best contractors out there, and it didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes.
“There’s a lot of good stuff hidden under here,” he said. “Marble surround, probably. Maybe some original tile work. Whoever closed this up didn’t know what they had.”
“Can you open it back up?”
“Should be able to. Depends on the condition underneath.” He made a note on his clipboard. “You want to see?”
“Yes. Definitely yes.”
He smiled at that, a quick flash of warmth. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
We moved through the room together, him pointing out structural details, me taking notes on my phone. He was good at explaining things without condescending, treating me like a colleague rather than a client who needed to be managed.
“The foundation is solid,” he said when we reached the far wall, running his palm along the exposed brick. “Whoever built this place knew what they were doing. It’s just the surface that needs work.”
I stepped closer to examine the brickwork. “What about the water damage in the northeast corner?”
“Cosmetic, mostly. There’s some rot in the subflooring we’ll need to address, but the bones are good.” He turned to look at me, and something in his expression shifted. “Actually, can I ask you something? Off the record?”
“Sure.”
He set his clipboard down on the windowsill. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this for about a week, and I keep chickening out, so I’m just going to say it.”
My stomach tightened.
“There’s a dish at the club I’ve been wanting to try,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d want to have dinner with me. Tomorrow night, maybe.”
I hadn’t been asked on a date since before Ford. I’d forgotten what it felt like, the flutter of nerves, the quick calculation of whether to say yes or make an excuse.
“I know it’s probably weird, since we’re working together,” Jason added, filling my silence. “And if you’re not interested, I promise it won’t make things awkward. I just thought…”
“Yes.”
He blinked. “Yeah?”
“I’d like that, actually.”
His whole face changed, a smile spreading across it that made him look younger. “Great. That’s great. I’ll text you the details.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He picked up his clipboard again, still smiling. “I should probably finish the walkthrough before I say something else unprofessional.”
We continued through the rest of the east wing, but something had shifted between us. He kept glancing at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I kept noticing things about him I hadn’t before. The way he moved. The steadiness of his hands.
When we finished, he walked me back to the foyer where I’d set up my temporary workspace. The coffee was sitting on my desk. Still warm. The handwriting on the side said my order in Ford’s careful script.
Jason saw me looking at it. “Someone dropped that off earlier. Didn’t leave a name.”
“I know who it was.”
He didn’t ask, and I was grateful. He just nodded and said he’d see me tomorrow night and left me alone with the coffee and the sketches and the quiet of the empty house.
I picked up the cup. Took a sip without meaning to. Perfect, as always.
At noon, lunch arrived. The same delivery driver from the same place, carrying the same order Ford had sent the day before. Turkey sandwich, tomato soup, sparkling water. My exact preferences, memorized and delivered without fanfare.
I was too tired to throw it away again. I sat at my desk and ate the sandwich and drank the water and hated that it tasted good.
Ford didn’t show up in person. No visit, no check-in, just the food and the coffee and the quiet persistence of a man who was finally paying attention.
I finished the soup and threw away the containers and went back to work.
That night I sat in my rental with a glass of wine and tried to think about Jason.
He was nice. He was handsome. He’d asked me to dinner like a normal person, and tomorrow I would sit across from him and have a conversation with a man who actually wanted to hear what I had to say.
This was good. This was what moving on looked like.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about Ford?
I kept circling back to the coffee. The lunch I’d actually eaten because I was too worn down to keep fighting.
I didn’t know what to do with Ford. I didn’t know how to stay angry at someone who was finally becoming the person I’d begged him to be for ten years.
Finishing my wine, I carried the glass to the kitchen. Stood at the sink looking out at the dark.
My body was restless. I recognized the feeling, the low hum of want that I’d been trying to ignore for months. I hadn’t been touched since before the divorce. Hadn’t wanted to be touched. Had shut down that whole part of myself because it was too tangled up with him.
But tonight my skin was electric. Tonight I couldn’t stop remembering.
I pressed my palms against the kitchen counter and closed my eyes.
Stop it. Stop thinking about him.
But my body didn’t care what I thought. My body remembered what it remembered.
I was standing at a similar counter, stirring something on the stove, when I heard the front door. His footsteps were quick, purposeful. Before I could turn around, his hands were on my hips, pulling me back against him.
“Fuck, baby,” he said against my ear, his voice low. “This smells better than whatever you’re cooking.”
His hand slid down my stomach, under the waistband of my shorts.
I gripped the edge of the counter so hard my knuckles went white. My thighs pressed together involuntarily.
Stop. Stop it.
I went to the bedroom. Lay down on top of the covers in the dark.
I tried to think about Jason. His easy smile. The way he’d looked at me when he asked me to dinner. I could build a fantasy around that. A distraction. Something that wasn’t Ford.
But it kept slipping. Every time I tried to picture his hands, they became Ford’s hands. Every time I tried to imagine his voice, it was Ford’s voice I heard.
His fingers slid through my folds, spreading the wetness he found there. I grabbed the counter to steady myself.
“Ford,” I gasped.
“Look at you,” he said, his breath hot against my neck as he pushed two fingers inside me. “Look at you taking my fingers. So wet already. Were you thinking about me while you cooked?”
My hand slid under the waistband of my underwear before I could stop myself. I was already wet, had been wet since I started thinking about him, and I hated myself for it even as my fingers found the slick heat between my legs.
I tried to keep it faceless. Just sensation, just release. I circled my clit with two fingers, slow at first, and my hips lifted off the bed.
But it wasn’t enough. My mind kept offering me the same thing, the same person, the same memories I couldn’t escape.
His fingers curled inside me, finding that spot, and my knees buckled. He caught me with his other arm around my waist, holding me up while he worked me open.
“Fuck, Ford,” I moaned, my head falling back against his shoulder. “Please stop teasing me.”
“Teasing you?” he asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Baby, I haven’t even started.”
He pulled his fingers out and spun me around. Lifted me onto the counter like I weighed nothing. Pushed my thighs apart and dropped to his knees.
I pushed two fingers inside myself and gasped. My palm pressed against my clit as I fucked myself with my hand, my hips rocking to meet each thrust.
His mouth found me, hot and wet and hungry. His tongue traced through my folds, circling my clit, then dipping lower. He licked me from my clit all the way to my ass, and I nearly screamed.
“Ford,” I panted, my fingers tangling in his hair. “Oh God, Ford, please.”
He did it again. And again. His tongue tracing that same path while his fingers pushed back inside me, fucking me in rhythm with his mouth.
My fingers moved faster. I was panting now, my thighs shaking. I thought about his hands spreading my legs apart. His mouth between my thighs. The obscene sounds he made when he ate me, like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
“Come for me, Mads,” he said against my pussy, his fingers curling hard. “I want to feel you come on my tongue.”
I shattered. My whole body seized, my thighs clamping around his head, my voice breaking on his name as I came so hard I saw stars.
I came with his name on my lips.
The orgasm crashed through me, my whole body clenching, my back arching off the bed. I rode it out with his face behind my closed eyes, his voice in my ears, the memory of him so vivid I could almost feel his skin against mine.
The silence afterward was suffocating.
I pulled my hand free and lay there staring at the ceiling. My heart was pounding. My skin was cooling. The pleasure was already fading, replaced by something heavier.
I had a date tomorrow night. With a nice man who smiled at me like I mattered. A man who wasn’t Ford.
And I had just come harder than I had in months to the thought of my ex-husband.