by Julie Kriss
It was a rough ride. There’s one thing about fucking an athlete: they’re extremely fucking strong. And coordinated. He pounded into me and everything went white, my thoughts stopped, and all I wanted was more of this, all the time. My hands were slick where I held the spindles of the headboard, and I was glad I was holding on, because otherwise we might drive it into the wall.
And surprisingly, I could feel my orgasm building. He hit me just right with every thrust, and I could feel my hips moving, my muscles going slack and giving in. I panted his name.
“Come on my cock,” he said, like he was reading my mind.
It took another minute, but I did. The orgasm came in slow, hard waves, and I dug my heels into the bed. I felt myself squeezing him, and Ryan slowed, stopped, buried his face in my neck as he came seconds after I did.
I lay there, dazed and orgasm-drunk, as I felt him get off the bed and go to the bathroom to get rid of the condom. There was a moment when I wondered if he’d be cold. Well, Kate, that was great, have a nice night. He’d been with a lot of women. He hadn’t been cold with me five years ago, but he had left. He never asked for my number, and I didn’t see him again.
I hadn’t wanted to see him again. That night had been too raw for me. But that was then, and this was now.
He came back to the bed and turned off the lamp. Then he got in, flipped me easily onto my side, and curled himself around me, spooning me. His muscled arm curled around me, and his hand found my wrist, gently rubbing it.
I went soft against him. He was warm, and he smelled so good. Our bodies fit. We lay there in the darkness. I was sore and happy and drunk on him.
“We’re doing that again?” I asked him.
His hand moved up my arm, rubbing. It was sweet, almost affectionate. “We’re definitely doing that again,” he said. “Rest up, woman.”
I smiled in the dark. He rubbed my shoulder, touched his fingers along my collarbone. I wanted to tell him how good it felt. But I was already falling asleep, and then there was nothing but darkness.
Nineteen
Ryan
* * *
Dylan’s favorite thing, when we were home, was to sit on my stomach while I watched TV on the sofa. He was at Riggs Auto Two with me now, and I was working under a car, and when I rolled out on my back he sat on me again, like he was sitting on a skateboard. The problem was he was nearly eight and he was pretty fucking heavy. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him to get off.
It was after hours. Dex was gone, and I was doing some extra work to keep up, because even with my shirt on we had a steady stream of customers. Dylan was hanging out with me, because my kid loved hanging out in a body shop. It was in his blood.
Right now he was telling me about dinosaurs. A lot about dinosaurs.
“Which one is triceratops?” I asked, just to stop the flow of words coming out of him.
“Dad, I told you. Can we have cake?”
Honestly, this kid could eat like a garbage pit and still be the size of a toothpick. I didn’t know where he got it. “Why would we have cake?” I asked him, my voice strangled because he was sitting on my diaphragm.
“Because it’s Kate’s birthday.”
I stared at him. “What? It’s Kate’s birthday?”
“Yeah. I heard her talking to her mom on the phone. She said she didn’t need to call on her birthday, because it was no big deal.”
Panic shot through my veins. What should I do? Kate had said her birthday was no big deal. Still, was I an asshole if I didn’t at least acknowledge it? We’d slept together. It had been fucking fantastic. Now it was her birthday. Yes, I was an asshole if I didn’t acknowledge it.
“We have to do something,” I said to Dylan. “Get her something.”
“Why?”
Because I had an incredible night with her four nights ago. Because she’s all I think about. Because she’s saving my fucking life. “Because she’s Kate,” I said to Dylan. “She does a lot for us.”
He thought this over. I knew my son: he needs a minute to think it through, but once he does it, he’s in. “Okay,” he said. “We can get her cake.”
“Fine, but she needs a present too. What should it be?”
Panic again. I’d never bought a gift for a woman in my life. Perfume? Flowers? What the fuck? “What does she like?” I asked Dylan.
“I don’t know.” He scratched his fingers through his hair. “Um, books?”
I couldn’t get her a book. I didn’t know which one to get.
“She’s pretty,” Dylan said. “Makeup?”
We were both baffled. We had no idea how to buy makeup. “She’s taking a course,” I said. “A teaching course.”
Dylan looked at me, and we both had the same thought at the same time. Like a light bulb going off over our heads.
“School supplies,” he said.
Back to school shopping was one of the highlights of Dylan’s year. He had a lot of anxiety around school, but he liked to pick out pencils, pens, notebooks, those pink erasers. We spent an hour buying supplies for Kate, including a pencil case (Dylan insisted) and a protractor (Dylan insisted again.)
Then we got cake. There was no time to get it personalized, but we got a generic one that said Happy Birthday on it.
We got home, and I laid everything on the table. “Go get Kate from her apartment,” I told Dylan. “Surprise her.”
He was excited about it. He walked to the stairs on exaggerated tiptoe while I tried not to laugh. Then he crept down like a stalker.
I heard him knock on Kate’s door. “Kate, come upstairs right now, it’s exciting!”
Kate’s door opened. “Dylan?”
“It’s cake!” he said, totally blowing it. “It’s your birthday!”
She came upstairs. She was wearing yoga pants, a T-shirt—her lounging-around-the-apartment outfit. She had her glasses on and her hair in a messy knot. I looked at her and my whole body went warm. After we slept the other night, we woke up and fucked again, and that time I did it long and slow, letting her almost come twice before she gave in and begged me to do it. Then I tipped her over the edge and listened to those amazing fucking sounds she made while I came inside her. One night with Kate, and I was the most sexually satisfied man you’ve ever seen. I never wanted anything else.
“Oh,” she said, looking at me, at the table. Her cheeks were a little pink. “Oh, my goodness. This is very nice.”
“It’s chocolate,” Dylan said, still on the cake. Was I ever that innocent? I felt like I’d been born a ball of tension and anger. “Open the pencil case!”
So Kate did what she did—oohed and aahed over the presents, let Dylan show her everything and explain. She accepted a slice of birthday cake and ate it. “Tell me you gave him dinner,” she said to me with narrowed eyes as she dug her fork in and Dylan attacked his.
I held up my hands. “He had dinner, I swear.” We’d gone to the local Greek takeout place while we were out. “It was even good for him.”
Dylan left to play his video game in his room, and I watched as Kate tidied the table and put the cake away in the fridge. “Don’t do that,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“It’s fine.”
She wasn’t looking at me. “What?” I asked. “What did I do?” I ran everything through my head, trying to figure out what I fucked up. I couldn’t think of what it was.
“You didn’t do anything,” she said, rinsing the plates. She put them down in the sink and dried her hands. “It’s just that…” She turned and leaned against the counter. “Birthdays were never a big thing in my house growing up. I guess I’m just not used to it.”
“Birthdays were never a thing?” They weren’t a thing for me either—if my father knew when my birthday was, I’d be shocked—but they were big for Dylan. We always went big for his birthday. He loved it. “You were a kid.”
“You’ve never met my parents.” She smiled, but there wasn’t a lot of happiness in it. “My parents are big on rules. Not i
n a mean way—they just like things to go their way. I’m an only child, and it was always sort of expected that I would do things the way they wanted. And they weren’t big on birthdays.” She frowned, staring at nothing. “When I say that out loud, it sounds pathetic. I’m twenty-seven today. Why the hell do I care what my parents think about birthdays?”
“Beats me,” I said.
“You’re right,” she said as if I’d said something profound. “Fuck it. I like my birthday. Thank you for doing this.”
I felt myself smiling. I was getting warm again. “You’re welcome.” I stepped forward, watched her cheeks go pink again as she looked at me. She looked soft beneath that T-shirt, and now that we were alone I was going to get my hands on her if she’d let me.
She didn’t protest, so I took her glasses off and set them on the counter. Then I tilted her face up and kissed her. I started out nice, like a sweet birthday kiss, but she went soft and hot, her tongue licking me, so I deepened it.
Kate moaned softly and her hands twisted the hem of my shirt. I moved my hands down to her neck, brushing my fingers along it, then sliding down her back. She gripped my shoulders, and the next thing I knew we were making out like teenagers, her fingers gripping my hair, my hands on her ass.
Only when I heard the thump did I realize we had moved and I had her ass against the kitchen table. I lifted her on and pushed her back, still kissing her. Her feet hooked around the backs of my thighs as she wrapped her legs around me. There were more soft thumps as her birthday presents fell to the floor.
I broke the kiss and moved my mouth along her jaw, the soft spot in the corner beneath her ear, down her neck. I could feel her breath, the hard knock of her heartbeat. “We can’t,” she managed in a whisper. “He’ll hear.”
I knew that. I was far gone, but not so far gone I’d fuck a woman on my kitchen table with a seven-year-old upstairs. Still, I kept her pressed down, savoring how hot and soft she was. “I’m coming to your room after he goes to sleep tonight,” I said in her ear, rubbing along the seam of her yoga pants, making her squirm. “I’m going crazy. I need to come inside you so bad.”
She sighed, arching her back and closing her eyes. “You are so sexy,” she said, her voice dreamy.
Something cool sliced through me. Because that was the only thing she could think of to say. It was a compliment; I’d heard it any number of times before. But coming from Kate, it felt different. That’s all this is to her, the voice in my head said. Just good sex. But that isn’t all it is to you.
And then, on the heels of that: Of course. Why would she want anything else from you?
I should say something. I should back out. But she was the only thing I fucking wanted.
It was far, far too late to save myself. And I knew it.
Twenty
Kate
* * *
“Okay, the dress shopping is done,” Emily said. “It’s time to drink.”
We were all at the Riggs house—Emily, Tara, Lauren, and me. It was Saturday, and we had just done an afternoon of dress shopping for the wedding. I’d been dreading it, along with the credit card bill, but it turned out much better than I thought it would. Luke and Emily had a budget as low as mine was: all of our dresses were bought at the Westlake Mall.
Emily had found a pretty jersey long-sleeved wrap dress in a dark cream color that offset her blonde hair. As for the bridesmaids, we found a dress in Ann Taylor that was a dark rich green, with long sleeves, a slightly raised waist, and a long, flowing skirt. The whole effect was pretty and perfect for fall, sort of Lord of the Rings-ish in color. The store had three of the bridesmaids’ dresses and was willing to give us a discount if we bought all three, so we were in business.
The entire affair had only taken a few hours, but we flopped on the sofas and chairs in the Riggs house as if we’d been marching all day with the Marines. Emily only stayed on her feet long enough to grab two bottles of wine from the fridge, plus four glasses. Then she flopped along with the rest of us.
“We should have done a bigger party,” Lauren said, leaning forward to open one of the bottles and pour. “You should have let me take us to a strip club like I wanted.”
Emily pulled an expressive face of disgust. “Ugh, Lauren. Just no.”
“Maybe some of us would have liked it,” Lauren persisted in a big-sisterly way. Lauren actually was the big sister, I’d learned, by two minutes—and she never let Emily forget it.
“You’ve totally turned into a horndog since your divorce,” Emily said. “It’s creepy.”
Lauren sipped her wine, unperturbed by the insult. “The boys are going to have strippers,” she said. “You know they are. It’s an equality thing.”
This was the night: the bachelor party. We only knew that Dex was throwing it and that it was somewhere in Westlake. The rest was top secret. Ryan had managed to get Dylan another sleepover invitation, so Dylan was looked after until morning.
That left us women free to have a bachelorette. Except that Emily had put the brakes on doing anything except what we were doing: sitting around drinking wine. She’d appointed Lauren her maid of honor, then overruled her party ideas. This seemed like a pretty normal dynamic among the twin sisters, along with the arguing that went along with it. Tara and I just went along for the ride, trying not to take sides.
“Can we at least order a pizza?” Lauren said pointedly. “And then jump the pizza man if he’s cute? I’d like to see another naked man sometime this century.”
Emily laughed, pouring her own extra-big glass of wine. “Lauren, it isn’t our problem that the only naked man you’ve ever seen in person is Vic.”
“Don’t remind me,” Lauren said. She took a sip of wine and pointed to me and Tara. “That’s confidential, by the way. That my ex-husband is the only man I’ve ever slept with.”
“What is said at the bachelorette stays at the bachelorette,” Tara said solemnly.
“That’s true,” I agreed. I poured my own wine and pulled my stockinged feet underneath me in the comfy chair I was in. Secretly, I agreed with Emily: I was glad we weren’t going to a cheesy strip club. I liked naked men as much as the next woman, but something about strip clubs was crass and sort of uncomfortable.
Besides, I already had a naked man I got to look at every once in a while. A hot, gorgeous naked man.
It was three weeks since Ryan and I had spent that first night in his bed. We’d been together three times since then, each time with Ryan sneaking into my bedroom after Dylan was asleep. It was incredible. It was hot. It was secret. I had no idea what we were doing; neither did he. There was no plan, no blueprint for what was supposed to be happening. I only knew what was happening. It felt a little out of both of our control, and I liked it.
“I don’t care if the guys have strippers,” Emily said. “I trust Luke. I mean, he’s all mine. I have him tied down. Absolutely.” She lay back on the couch with her wine glass on her chest, her feet poking Lauren’s lap. “Besides, it’s possible I told Mom that the bachelor party is tonight. And she’s a cop. And it’s possible she has a few people on the lookout, just in case.”
Tara looked up from her phone, which she was using to try and pick us some music. “You’re having them followed by cops?”
“Oh, dear God,” Lauren said. “Em, that is so low.”
“I am not having them followed,” Emily said. “What if they try to drink and drive or something? I don’t trust Dex as far as I could throw him.”
“Dex wouldn’t let anything bad happen,” Lauren said.
Emily stared at her. “Excuse me? Have we known Dex since we were fourteen or not?”
Lauren shrugged. “He’s more protective of his brothers than you think he is.”
“You seem to know him awfully well,” Tara said drily.
“I hadn’t seen him in ten years before this week, in fact,” Lauren said. “I’ve just always given Dex more credit than the rest of Westlake has. But I don’t want to talk about him.” She t
urned her attention to me. “I want to talk about Ryan.”
I hid behind my wine glass, taking a gulp. “There is nothing to say about Ryan.”
Emily laughed. “Kate, I live with a Riggs brother just like you do. So does Tara. I guarantee you ovulate every time he walks in the room, whether you want to or not.”
“Especially with a kid,” Tara said. “Extra ovulation.”
“My cycle is perfectly normal, thank you.”
Lauren was looking at her phone, finding a pizza place to call. She gave me a quick, sharp-eyed look. “So is he good in bed, or what?”
I gulped my wine again and didn’t say anything.
The room went quiet.
“Oh my God, Lauren,” Emily said, staring at me. “Jackpot.”
“I don’t…” The wine had gone to my head, but suddenly I didn’t care. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this. “Yes, he is.”
“I knew it was happening,” Tara said softly, almost kindly.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “We’re just fooling around. In fact we, um, fooled around five years ago. So we’re picking up where we left off.”
Even Lauren looked impressed at that. “Wow. I’ve been ogling Ryan since I was a teenager, and I never got that far.”
“Because you got married when you were ten,” Emily said to her. She turned back to me. “Not that I’ve ever touched him either. Spill, Kate. What’s going on? Are you two a thing?”
“No, no.” The words leapt to my lips, automatic. We weren’t a thing. If we were a thing, I would know it. “Dylan gets anxious at the idea of Ryan getting involved with anyone. He’s already been through so much. It wouldn’t be fair to him if it didn’t work out. So we’re just… friends with benefits, I guess.”
“But you live with him.” Tara had her sharp-eyed counselor look on, and I suddenly wished that this conversation had come up when all of us were much, much drunker. “That complicates things.”
