by AM Hartnett
Pulling hard on the cigarette in one hand, Seth curled the fingers in the other hand as his palm itched with the memory of that first impact of flesh against flesh.
He’d done a lot of kinky things before. Spanking had never been one of them, at least not like that. He’d never hauled someone over his lap and given it to them like they were a naughty child. When he’d first started, he wasn’t sure he liked it – until she made it damn clear that she liked it.
By the time he’d finished his cigarette, Seth’s cock poked against the front of his pants, and then led the way once he finished washing his hands and brushing his teeth.
The cat had found his way to the bed, taking the warm spot Seth had left.
Seth didn’t bother politely shooing Marco away. He picked the cat up and walked to the window, tossed him onto the landing, then headed back to the bedroom, where he pulled aside one curtain to let some light in.
He stripped down, tossed the sheet to the floor, then spooned up next to her. Still asleep, she snuggled back, the perfect fit.
Cock nestling between the two halves of her ass, he slipped his arm beneath hers and strummed her nipple until it hardened and she came to.
‘Morning,’ he whispered.
‘What time is it?’
‘Just after seven.’
She groaned and turned her face into the pillow, muttering so he couldn’t hear her.
Seth nudged his knee between her thighs and nuzzled into her hair. ‘What’s that?’
‘I said you’re a crazy man, getting me up this early on a Saturday morning.’
‘Early? Honey, I usually get up at five.’
‘That’s crazy talk.’
Seth chuckled and skimmed his hand over her belly. ‘Too early for this?’
‘I haven’t brushed my teeth.’
Lower he went, into the fuzz beneath her abdomen. ‘I’m not interested in your teeth, sweetheart.’
Another whimper came from her. She didn’t move, not at first, as he stroked the velvety hood that concealed her clit. He was beginning to wonder if she had fallen asleep on him when she moaned and lifted her head.
‘My ass is still hot.’
‘Oh, yes, it is.’ Withdrawing his hand from between her legs, he gave her a nudge to roll her onto her stomach. In the sunlight he could see that the blush from the previous night had become a map of splotches, and he gently skimmed them.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘No,’ she said sleepily, then twisted around to face him. She looked down his body and grinned. ‘What were you doing while I was asleep?’
‘Thinking about what I could do to you when you woke up.’
‘Anything good?’
‘Everything good.’ He went to kiss away her smile, but she turned her face. ‘Oh, like that’s going to stop me.’
He snarled as he buried his face into her neck, and April squealed as she bucked against him. She put up a good tussle, kicking and wriggling as her giggles spilled out of her, but he conquered by pinning her down.
‘If you won’t let me kiss you, you’ll have to give me somewhere else to put my lips.’
April lifted a brow and lifted her head to look down between them.
He followed her gaze. His erection arced over her belly, and as she drew her knees up and propped her feet against his ass, he laughed softly. ‘You trying to tell me something?’
‘Come closer, and I’ll whisper it to you.’ Seth bowed, and she pressed her lips just beneath his ear. ‘I want you to make me come so hard I don’t want to get out of this bed all day.’
He groaned, and one quick moment later he was inside her.
Barely ten minutes later he was flat on his back, trying to catch his breath as April rolled off of him.
‘All right, that’s the last time for a while,’ she said just as he was about to say the same thing.
He dragged the blanket up over them and a yawn escaped.
‘I could go back to sleep,’ he murmured, already going under. ‘Can’t remember the last time that happened.’
‘Hrmm,’ was her sleepy reply, and the last thing he heard.
He woke later with a panic, his body warning him that it was way past the time he should be up, and it took a good ten seconds before he realised that he hadn’t overslept at all.
Almost eleven. Jesus Christ. He could have rolled over and gone right back to sleep – if he hadn’t been alone in the bed.
He ran his hand across the empty spot. Still a little warm, so she hadn’t been gone long.
Missing the comfort of the bed already, he got up and pulled his pyjama pants back on to look for her, and reached the living room just as she was coming through the window with a thermos.
She gave him a sheepish grin. ‘I was hoping to surprise you.’
‘You didn’t go out like that, did you?’
‘Actually, yes. I stopped traffic.’ She twirled, her robe swishing around her thighs.
‘Wait a second, come over here for a minute.’ He met her halfway and lifted the back of her robe. ‘I missed that before. That’s something else.’
Her expression told him she had already given her bottom an examination. It was faint, but it was there: the outline of his hand.
‘No walking around naked at the gym for a while,’ she said, and held up her thermos. ‘I made coffee.’
‘You didn’t have to go upstairs for coffee. I have a can in the kitchen.’
‘You have a can of the blue stuff.’
‘What’s the matter with the blue stuff? You telling me you’re too good for my coffee?’
‘Oh, you just wait.’ She took his hand and pulled him along to the kitchen, putting the perfect wiggle on display. ‘This is the best coffee you’ll ever have.’
‘Miss Fancy Pants,’ he teased, pulling her back into his arms. She was so soft and made the best squeaking sounds as he moved from cuddle territory to inappropriate groping.
She escaped him and put the thermos on the counter, then looked up. ‘All right, I have no idea where anything is. I was honestly planning on rooting through your cupboards, like that wasn’t a complete invasion of privacy.’
‘I don’t keep the good stuff in my kitchen cupboards.’ He reached past her and pulled open a door to reveal a shelf of mismatched crockery. ‘Don’t swoon. Nothing is colour coordinated.’
‘You’re asking for a smack in the mouth.’
‘Excellent. I’ll have a mark on my face to match the one on your ass.’
As she poured the coffee into faded old mugs, she chattered on about how good the coffee was and how it came from a local roaster and she’d gotten the really expensive coffee grinder for half price because of a Black Friday sale, and so on and so forth – and Seth found himself immensely happy.
Too many mornings on his own, drinking his bad coffee and muttering to himself about the morning news before checking off his daily to-do list. Having someone there cheerfully nattering as she flitted around his kitchen was nice.
It helped that the someone was April. He was grateful his earlier fuck-up had been forgiven. In the day after, that queer, ticklish feeling in his chest had grown.
The coffee met his approval and he gave a sigh. He had to admit, her overpriced beans were far better than the blue can. She offered to make breakfast, then shooed his protests away like they were fruit flies.
On and on she talked, cracking eggs and grating cheese, pausing for long sips of her coffee before hitting the reset button and starting again.
‘I’ve got a cookbook upstairs that I picked up in a thrift shop. It’s a great little thing written by the owner of a little inn along the coast. I’m trying to make one new thing from it a week, kind of like that Julia Childs movie, only my way.’ Another pause, another sip, and Seth’s smile got wider. ‘I’ve already made fudge and taken it to work. They all loved it and no one died. On Sunday I made lasagna, which I always wanted to learn to make but back home I didn’t do much cooking because my mother would hov
er whenever I went into the kitchen. This Sunday, I’m getting really crazy and making a cake. Me, making a cake. I’ve never made a cake before unless it came from a box.’
Not only did she talk, but she painted a picture of herself. All the little details he picked up on made her more alluring, especially when she paused and blushed and apologised for talking too much.
He’d cleaned the dining table the day before, and so they went there with the food, and when she fell silent he felt he ought to say something about himself.
But what? Everything that had ever happened to him had happened when he was a twosome. He didn’t want to start filling her head with his memories of Rita, and so he picked the most random thing that popped into his head.
‘I was thinking I might get a leash for the cat so I can take him down to the park once in a while.’
What the hell, Wolfman? came the scathing voice for the first time since he picked April up the previous evening.
He hid his cringe and kept his eyes on his omelette, and wondered if there was possibly another way to make himself sound like a crazy cat lady.
But April laughed and shook her head. ‘That sounds good in theory, but I’m wondering how much he’d like having a leash on him. He seems to like to come and go as he pleases.’
‘No, just the fire escape,’ he muttered, relief washing through him. ‘If he’s too far from me, he gets a little crazy.’
‘You could give it a try. I’ll go with you, if you want.’ She looked away quickly, and he thought it was funny that she was worried about watching what she said. He didn’t want that, and so he moved his feet beneath the table so that his thigh rested against hers.
‘If you’re not doing anything later today, we can put him in the carrier and swing by the pet store, then head out,’ he suggested.
The colour on her cheeks deepened, but the pleased look on her face matched the warmth that ran through his veins.
‘Sure,’ she replied lightly, then finished off her coffee. ‘That would be an interesting excursion, taking a cat for a walk. Maybe I should get a pet snake and I can carry it around on my neck.’
Seth set down his fork. ‘No snakes.’
‘The lease doesn’t say anything about what kind of pet. If I want a snake, I can get a snake.’
‘Would you really want a snake?’
April shuddered away her incentive to tease him. ‘Maybe I’ll just get a pet rat instead.’
He didn’t want to say that rats freaked him out more than snakes, so he kept his mouth shut, shovelled in more egg and looked forward to their outing.
Chapter Ten
When she got home from work a few days later, April jumped into the shower. It only took three minutes of soaping herself up for her new and powerful addiction to give her a kick.
His truck had been parked out front. He was somewhere in the building, and knowing that made her so horny she had to turn up the cold water to make it through her shower.
Once she was finished, she went to the bedroom in her towel and poked her head out the window. She could hear his TV. She could picture him sitting in his chair, feet up, hands behind his head and his elbows sticking out as he watched a Criminal Minds rerun.
Texting him that she was home was the sensible thing to do, but April wasn’t feeling that sensible. She tossed the towel aside and threw on a dress, then headed down the fire escape.
Her plan was simple: hop in his window, straddle him in his throne and beg him for a hard fuck in the middle of the day.
If history was any indication, he’d give her just what she wanted. She’d discovered that he provided the best work-day stress relief by putting her cheap bed to work, gripping the headboard to push and pull his big body as he pumped her.
At his window, April poked her head in and called his name. She didn’t get an answer, but the television was on and so was the kitchen light.
Her gaze fell upon his recliner, and she grinned.
I hope you like surprises, Mr Axworthy.
Leaving her sandals beneath the window, she crossed the room and plunked down in his chair. One leg over the arm, she pulled her dress up to mid-thigh. The invasion of his personal space might be pushing it, but she intended to make it worth his while.
Closing her eyes, she tucked her hand between her legs and replayed the night in the cage. The firm grip on her hips. The heat of friction as his belly-hairs rubbed against her ass. The sting…oh, wow. The sting that came with his palm cracking against her ass, and the fast-moving heat that spread across her cheeks.
She’d never, ever thought that spanking was a thing she could get into. She didn’t think of herself as a kinky girl, but she could get used to being bent over his lap and showed what’s what every now and again.
Now, touching herself in the comfortable chair that was so moulded to his body that it was like having his warmth pressed against her, she wondered if it would be just as exciting here in his apartment. Or hers, bent over that kitchen table she planned to entertain at.
The thought of serving dinner on the same surface that Seth pressed her down upon brought out a giggle. She bit her lip to keep it in, then bit down harder to suppress a moan.
The chair spun as she brushed her finger over the puffy hood. Her clit fattened, ready for a more direct touch, but she avoided getting too worked up. She didn’t want to be too far ahead of him when he returned. She wanted him to set the pace again. She wanted him to take again.
Closing her legs against the heat and the throb, she opened her eyes and looked around. There wasn’t a surface she couldn’t imagine being fucked on. The big, heavy desk littered with clutter had just enough room to perch her ass on. The sofa was more sturdy than she trusted hers to be. And the dining table, if they cleared it.
Her gaze lingered on the table and its organised surface and her curiosity got the better of her. She left the recliner behind for a closer look.
There were hundreds of photos stacked together, some bound with rubber bands with a note attached to the top. She recognised Seth’s blockish writing on most, but there were others, marking other piles, in a neat, bubble-like cursive.
Springsteen Boston 2002
New truck Nov 2010
Blue sky campground Aug 2004
One in particular caught her attention.
Wedding pictures – dinner & dance
She knew the smart thing to do was to sit her ass back down in the chair and wait for him. Even smarter, go back upstairs and text him. Yet she couldn’t help herself. Her fingers were numb as she reached out for the wedding stack and lifted the paper on one side.
It was a close-up, she guessed. Maybe a selfie. That was Seth on the exposed side. Younger and with his hair short and curling, though he still had the beard, and a black eye. He held up to his lips a glass of what she guessed was champagne.
No, wait. That wasn’t his hand holding the glass. Those fingers were long and slender and the nails painted ruby-red.
She lifted the other side of the note, and there she was. Rita.
The shock that went through April as she stared back at those green eyes lined with dark liquid eyeliner wasn’t just because she had never really thought of Rita as a real person, but because she was so young. Younger than April, she guessed, eighteen or nineteen.
Put it down, she told herself, even as she pinched her fingers around the photograph underneath. Put it down. You’ve got no business snooping around.
Yet still she withdrew the picture.
It was almost the same, with the young couple toasting, but this time the photo was obviously taken by someone else. Arms crossed together, they held one another’s cups in the traditional newlywed pose, though that was about as traditional as the couple looked. Seth was wearing jeans, although his shirt was white and there was a tie loosened around his neck. The bride wore a long emerald dress that hugged her curves and complemented her wine-red hair.
God, she couldn’t get over how young they looked. The teen bride a
nd her bad-boy groom.
She tucked the photo back in and turned her attention to the small plastic bin on the table. More pictures, mostly random shots of things, but she uncovered another photo of the two of them together.
She flipped it over and read the date: 2012. Not long ago. They were sitting on the stoop, looking up at the camera. Rita was one step below him and reclining between his legs. Her arm dangled over his knee, holding a cigarette, and she flipped the bird to the camera as Seth glowered.
Rita must have been sick then, April thought, whether they knew it or not. Gone were the chubby, rosy cheeks and the red hair. She was thinner and her tank top seemed to hang a little like she had shrunk inside it, but she obviously still cared for her appearance, with her sleek Bettie Page cut, red lips and bold lines around her eyes.
April sank down into the chair next to her and pulled out another photo that was obviously taken on the same day. Wife knelt in the flower bed alongside the stoop, purple gloves and matching kneepads on. She smiled up at Seth, who stood over her with a grin.
How does someone get out of bed in the morning after half their life just faded away in front of him?
So far, Seth had struck her as such a simple man, comfortable in his own skin, but as she looked at the piles laid out in front of her she knew that there was so much more there beneath the surface, and not all of it was something she should see.
She felt so small in comparison, so shallow.
April tucked the photos back in the plastic bin and got to her feet. Playtime was over before it had even started. She needed to get out of that apartment and take a little time to get her bearings, overcome the guilt that now crept in because she’d snooped upon something that was obviously deeply personal to him.
She stood, chair scraping against the wood floor, and then came the click of the door unlocking.
Seth stepped into the living room and did a double-take at the sight of her, and April said nothing, nor did she move. She stood in front of the table, fingers still pressed against the edge, and stared back at him. She felt sick.
