by Sky Winters
“Safe?” he asked in practically a whisper. She could tell that he was mere moments away from being asleep. “No one has ever felt safe with me before.”
With that he started to snore and Jolene realized that she was going to have to fall asleep now, too. She rested her head on him for a while, enjoying the sound of his heartbeat and his breathing. It felt nice to have him in bed with her.
Jesus, could it really have only been yesterday that she had slept with her ex? She hoped that her ex was having an awful night without her, and that he would sign the divorce papers, but as far as she was concerned, Jolene McNulty was free of him completely.
She was onto bigger and better things.
When she woke up in the morning, Jolene discovered that she was alone in the bed. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and wondering if he had quickly made his exit before she could even thank him for last night or anything. She rolled out of bed somehow and, realizing she was naked, put on the jeans and blouse from the night before.
She had a killer hangover, but that stopped mattering as soon as she walked out of her bedroom and found Luke in her kitchen. He was standing by the counter, dressed back in last night’s clothes as well, fiddling with the toaster. Momentarily she wondered if the outlets were still being a problem, but he got a handle on it and soon she could smell the pop tarts that he had made for them.
Clearly Luke had snuck out to get them while she was sleeping. They sat down together like they had before and feasted on breakfast.
“I don’t have a lot to offer,” she said with a shy smile. Now that the booze had worn off, she was back to wondering how a guy like Luke could ever possibly see anything in her.
He looked at her and smiled. “I’m not asking for you to offer me anything,” he said. “I know you still need time to get settled. I plan to help with that.”
One thing he definitely was not helping her with was getting dressed. As soon as they finished their unusual breakfast, she attempted to take a shower. Luke joined her in the bathroom and removed her clothes for her. Then he removed his own clothes.
Jolene could not say if she felt clean after their shower together. It had been interrupted by sex against the wet wall, but then she and Luke had sponged each other off so who knew how clean they were? He play chased her back into the bedroom afterwards and they made out, naked and wet, on top of the bed. She was so grateful that it was a Saturday.
“I’m free as a bird all day,” he told her, nuzzling her with his perfect nose and smiling at her with his perfect teeth.
They took advantage of the freeness of the day by making love several more times. Every time her clothes went on, he would take them off.
Finally, when evening arrived, Luke decided that it was time for him to go.
“Good, I need to unpack,” Jolene joked, though she wished that he could stay. She was feeling so happy with him there that she worried about the aloneness that would come as soon as he was gone.
Luke flashed another killer smile at her. “I will be back,” he told her. “I promise.”
He leaned down over her and they kissed. He walked out the door and she felt an emptiness for a few moments. She did not know with what she would fill her time now. She supposed that the best thing to do would be to finally get to work. After all, she had not worked since arriving in Burlington. The outlets worked now, so she did not have that as an excuse.
Two days later, she was up early and making coffee with the new coffee maker she had bought herself. She was even making eggs. She felt much fancier now… or at least more normal again. She worked on things on her laptop at the kitchen table, careful to not spill anything on her much needed computer as she ate and worked at the same time.
The sound of her doorbell interrupted her. She was not expecting anyone, not even a delivery. She went over to the front door, realizing as she went that there was one person it certainly could be. She peeked through the peephole and sure enough she was right!
Luke was standing there on her front porch, holding a glass container full of some kind of casserole, Jolene assumed. He was making the standard, ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ gesture of bringing over some kind of food item. Jolene had not expected anything of the kind, especially not after all of the other kinds of welcome he had given her… She grinned, not believing how thoughtful this man was. He was starting to break away from the classic bad boy mold of all of her former lovers.
She opened the front door wide so she could get a good look at him, hoping that he would not be thrown off by her pony tail or her cut-off jean shorts. She looked cute but she certainly did not look like she was going on a hot date.
In her defense, he had given her no warning!
He opened his mouth to start talking and Jolene lunged forward, cutting him off immediately with a kiss. Luke nearly dropped the casserole. She led him inside by the hand and placed the casserole on the counter before leading him—again by the hand—to her bedroom.
“You have no idea how needy you’ve made me,” she cooed at him, pulling down his pants and taking his magnificent cock into her mouth.
He moaned and ran his fingers through her red hair as she sucked and licked and kissed. After a few blissful moments of this, he laid her down on the bed and entered her. He was gentler this time, which surprised Jolene. There was something different and maybe even more affectionate in the way he made love to her this time. His thrusts were slower, more lingering.
She raised her arms up to clutch the pillow behind her head as he explored her insides with his cock. She felt pleasure she had never before experienced.
“Mmmph,” she groaned a little. “You were saving this for later, I see.”
Luke gazed down at her and gave her a small smile.
She wondered if he had been missing her as much as she had missed him. It certainly seemed that way. Hell, he had gone to the trouble of making a casserole for her. That shit took time! She was going to have to repay him somehow in the food department. Pop-Tarts just would not do.
The roughness and urgency was gone from their sex this time. Luke made love to her like was… well, making love to her. He kissed her and caressed her and gently fondled her without leaving any fresh marks. When he saw the bruises on her skin, he kissed them as if that was the elixir that would make them better.
“What do you want?” he asked her as he slowly thrust deeply within her, careful to tease all the right spots.
Jolene ground her hips against his, arching upwards at the feel of him. “Hmm, faster and to the left?” She bit her lip as she smiled. “Is that too specific?”
He chuckled softly. “Not at all.”
Speeding up his thrusts, he positioned himself so he was moving more towards her left. That was it. That was the spot. She closed her eyes tightly and let out a loud shout. “Yesss!”
He continued to move at the same pace, holding her close. He came inside of her and then surprised her by staying there for a moment. Carefully, he slipped out of her and then cuddled her for a bit as their heartbeats slowed back down to normal.
She smiled at him as he held her. “You spoil me,” she said.
Luke chuckled. “I didn’t know you would be so turned on by casserole.”
“I’m turned on by you.”
They kissed and then went together to the bathroom to clean each other up. They took a hot shower together and Jolene rubbed her light blue shower pouf all over him. She could never get enough of looking at his naked body. He had an interesting, crescent moon shaped birthmark on his neck. She hadn’t noticed that before, though she had been so preoccupied with his chest when they were last together that she was sure there were plenty of things she’d missed.
The way he was staring at her, she was confident that the feeling was mutual. He gazed at her, letting his eyes explore her now that his cock had had its turn. Jolene was curvy. Some might even say voluptuous. But she did not feel like she was model material like he was.
After their shower, they dried o
ff and went out to the living room together. She did not care about their dampness as they sat on her canvas couch. “Are you off for a bit?” she asked him, resting her chin against her fist as she looked at him. “Please say you’ll stay a while?”
There was something that seemed a bit uneasy in Luke’s expression now. “I will stay as long as you want…” he said, trailing off. He looked over at the counter and, realizing that the casserole was still there, he stood up and went to put it in the refrigerator.
“Aww,” Jolene said. “We could eat it together, if you want.”
“I made it for you,” he said, seemingly shy. “I don’t want to eat your welcome present.”
She smiled at him, flattered by the fact that he had made her a casserole, especially after everything else they had already done. “That was very thoughtful of you. Most people do that sort of thing as an ice breaker. You know, when they’re going to introduce themselves to a newcomer to the neighborhood or whatever. This is actually the first time anyone has been this welcoming to me. Is it a Vermont thing, or just a you thing?”
She gently pressed a finger into his pecs, noticing that they did not feel quite so rock hard this time. She wondered if he had been flexing before… Luke did strike her as a bit of a show off, though not in a bad way.
Luke laughed softly, looking down at the casserole on the counter in a sort of shy way. “I guess maybe it’s just a me thing.”
With that, she hugged him, nuzzling into his chest. She listened to his heartbeat and wondered to herself how she was ever going to live there without him in her house with her. Jolene was resilient enough to live on her own, but that didn’t mean that she particularly wanted to… She preferred the company of others.
Especially this particular other.
“I would be living alone in the dark if it wasn’t for you,” Jolene told him in a hushed sort of tone, almost as though uttering it softly would make it a less embarrassing admission. “I don’t know where I’d be without you, Luke.”
Suddenly, his face went white. He gently pushed her away. “I should go,” he said. “I, uh… I just remembered that I have to do something.”
With that strange announcement, he rushed into his room and put on his clothing. She followed him, baffled and watching his crescent moon, and how his face was making it show up a milky white against his skin.
“When can I see you again?” she asked him, yearning in her voice.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably soon… It’s a small town.”
Now fully re-dressed, he left the bedroom and went out the front door before Jolene even had time to stop him from going. She couldn’t help feeling like she had said something amiss, but she could not think of what it was.
She carefully put his casserole into the refrigerator, not willing to eat it because it was special to her. She was sure she would feel like it later on, when she started to run out of food or long for his presence again.
If nothing else, at least she could say that she had made one worthwhile friend in Vermont. She just hoped that she wouldn’t do anything to fuck it up.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Room Where It Happened
Jolene ended up getting a lot of work done in the long week that followed, but she was not happy about it. She missed having Luke around. She hadn’t heard anything from him ever since his sudden departure, which made her firmly believe that she had said or done something to upset him. She didn’t have his phone number; only the number for his electrician company and she was not about to call him there in an attempt to track him down. That would be decidedly uncool.
So, instead of making any attempt to get in touch with him, she threw herself into her work. She was pleasing her clients at least. The change of atmosphere and the complete freedom to write copy while in her underwear made the move completely worth it. Add to that a certain sexy electric man and Jolene was pretty much set.
There were several messages on her phone from her ex, but the last thing she wanted to do was open that can of worms—especially when she was vulnerable from feeling lonely.
One of the hardest things for her was something that she had for so long envisioned would be the easiest, most freeing thing. She was having a hard time going to sleep in her room. It was the room where it happened. The room where she had had a crazy, fast love affair with Luke. She hadn’t even claimed it as her own before they had claimed it together, and the bed felt so besmirched without him.
Luckily, just as Jolene was starting to really feel down in the dumps, she got a call on her cell phone from someone who so thankfully was not Kenny.
His name was like a magical incantation.
“Hello?” she asked brightly, feeling silly for answering in such a bland, unexciting way.
“Hey,” Luke replied. God, his voice was sexy over the phone. The time away from him had evidentially turned her into even more of a middle school girl.
He chuckled into the phone. Oh god, he could hear it too. She was really going to need to work on upping her coolness factor. She had always thought she was the smoothest woman ever, but apparently not. Not at all.
It was telling that Vermont was making this Bostonian feel lame.
“What’s up?” she asked, doing her best to remain calm and casual. Luke had a life outside of her and she had a life outside of him. Sure, most of her life outside of him consisted of staring at screens for hours on end, but it was a life anyway. She did not particularly enjoy long walks in the wilderness in the hot summer… especially not alone.
“Not much, you?” Luke replied. The short responses were kind of making her mental. Not that she was expecting a loving sonnet from him or anything, but she had hoped that he would sound a bit more… excited to hear her voice? Because she sure as shit was excited to hear his.
She decided to amp it up a little to make it more obvious. “I was beginning to wonder if you had lost interest in me.”
There was that deep chuckle of his again. “No, no,” he said. “I’ve just been busy with work. You know how summer can be, with the heat knocking out power and stuff. At least there weren’t any storms.”
Aww, she did not want to talk about the weather with Luke. “Oh, I guess I can’t blame you for that, then. I’ve been busy too, though my job’s nowhere near as exciting as yours…”
Talking about work was not any better.
“Heh,” he said. “So listen. I was thinking that, since it’s my day off again, you might want to come out with me to Vermonster again.”
Jolene chuckled a bit. “Do you live there?”
He laughed back. “Pretty much… So what do you say? Are you in?”
She would honestly go anywhere with him. The bar had been pretty cool, though Jolene could not remember every detail of their first time there… Their first night together. “Sounds good,” she said. “I’m going to end up addicted to those—what were they called?—Vermillion something or others.”
“I could tell you liked them,” Luke teased. “Every time I blinked, I had to get you a new one.”
“That is not true!” she laughed. “You did not have to keep getting them for me.”
“Yeah, sure.”
She could almost imagine his face, the way he was smiling. She knew that he was smiling. It was so evident in his wonderful, growly voice. Luke sounded like he had smoked for years but then quit fairly recently. Jolene did not feel like she needed to worry about his health; the effects of past mistakes lingered but were benign.
“I’ll pick you up in about an hour?” he offered then. “I hope you’re stocked up on Pop-Tarts.”
Jolene was all set to answer with a clever retort, but he ended the call before she could say anything. She stared at her phone, attempting to memorize his number by keeping her eyes on it, and then she swiftly saved it in his contacts.
Luke.
She put him in her phone as Luke. No last name needed. No explanation.
Her bedroom was a wreck. She had been in such
a funk that she hadn’t done laundry yet, and therefore she had to wear a long-sleeved black and white striped sweater and some dark jeans. The jeans were very tight on her, a fact that did not help Jolene feel better about this new date. She was nervous and excited, and when she got nervous and excited she sometimes felt like just staying in bed was a better option…
The sweater looked nice on her, at least. She rolled up the sleeves so she would not die of heat stroke. At least Vermont was not volcanically hot.
It didn’t take Luke long to come to her cottage. Jolene heard the familiar purr of his motorcycle in her driveway and rushed to open the front door before he was even off of his bike. He even still had his black helmet on.
She swiftly locked her front door, threw her bag over her shoulder and went out to him. She threw her arms around his shoulders in greeting. Luke grinned a devilishly handsome grin at her, obviously glad to see that she was so pleased to see him. He was always willing to have his ego stroked.
“Hey, you,” he said. “Hop on and let’s go somewhere.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay a minute?” she asked him, placing her hand into his pocket and feeling around for the edge of his cock, which she rubbed up against as soon as she could find it.
“Whoa!” he said with a laugh. “Well, I can’t exactly turn that down.”
Luke got off his bike and secured his helmet in the storage space before following Jolene back up to the house. She unlocked the door, which made him laugh. “Why did you even lock the door if you wanted to come back in?”
She smiled at him. “I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”
Once the door was open, they rushed inside, holding hands. They threw off each other’s clothes on the way to her bedroom, leaving a trail of clothing in their wake. By the time they reached her bed, they were naked. He took charge however and moved her to the closet instead. He closed the door of it and held her up against it, taking her from behind.
