by Skye Jones
“Do you have any wine?”
“Yes. A bottle of white in the fridge.”
“How about I pour us a glass each, and we can take it with us. Might relax us a little.”
Good idea. My hangover hadn’t fully cleared up, but hair of the dog might help. I certainly liked the idea of a little something to relax me.
I grabbed a couple of glasses, and Adam got the wine from the fridge. He opened it and poured two healthy glasses full. We each took our glass and headed for the hallway. My face burned as I walked. I didn’t have a clue how to act in this situation. How did one go about a romantic tryst in the afternoon? Women like me didn’t do crazy things like this, but if I didn’t get out of my head, I’d ruin this experience. Nearing the door to my room, I tipped the wineglass and took a huge gulp.
I headed for the bedroom I’d been using during my stay and pushed the door open. The bed lay crumpled and unmade, and for some reason, it made me blush.
Nerves building to a point bordering on anxiety-attack time, I took another sip.
“You look tense,” Adam said. “Your shoulders are tight. I noticed it last night. Do you want a massage?”
“A massage?” I sounded like an idiot, but this wasn’t what I’d been expecting.
“I give good massages. Or so my ma…my wife used to say.”
“Okay.” I used to love getting massages from Roger. Not that he ever did much beyond rubbing impatiently at my shoulders for five minutes.
“Do you have any body lotion?”
“Erm, yes. In the bathroom.”
“Great.” He headed for the door, turning as he got there. “Why don’t you get undressed, well, your top half anyway, and put the sheet over you and lie down. I only need to get to your shoulders and back.”
Then he left the room. I froze for a moment, looking at the spot where he’d stood, and then I shot into action. I got my top and bra off in superquick time. Pushed my boots off and shrugged my jeans down my legs. Wearing only my knickers now, I dove under the covers, pulling them up to my waist, and rested my arms on the pillows.
Adam came back into the room and stopped. I glanced at him to see his eyes taking me in. “You’ve got gorgeous skin.”
I wished. But the compliment was nice.
He sat next to me on the bed and pulled his jumper off. Underneath he wore a white T-shirt which showed off every bit of his fit physique.
He rubbed his hands together quickly and flashed a wry smile. “Don’t want you jumping off the bed because of my freezing hands.”
I doubted I’d jump off the bed. What with being mostly naked and all.
Once he’d finished doing his impression of a cricket, he popped the cap on my moisturizer and poured a liberal amount into his hands.
I braced myself for his touch, nervous and excited all at once. When his palm landed on my back, it wasn’t what I was expecting. He didn’t move it; instead, he let his warm palm stay on the center of my back. It soothed me, as once more, his touch somehow calmed me. After a moment or two, he swept up my skin in a slow move, until he touched between my shoulder blades. His second hand joined the first, and then both moved out in a choreographed dance, along my shoulder blades and out over the tops of my arms. I sighed a little at his touch. The first real affectionate touch in a long, long time, if I didn’t count hugs from friends or family.
Adam soon set up a pattern of smooth sweeps over my skin. As I began to truly relax into his touch, he changed things up and began to knead the tight knot of muscles by my neck.
“You’re so tense here.” He murmured the words right in my ear, and I shivered as his breath brushed the sensitive skin there.
“I guess. It’s been a tense time. What can I say?” I gave a soft laugh, but for some stupid reason, I suddenly wanted to cry.
Adam continued to work the muscles of my back and shoulders, and he proved to be good at it. Really good. I’d pay him for a massage, truth be told.
Somewhere along the way, his hands moved lower and lower until he pushed the covers down, and I thrilled at the knowledge he’d now be able to see the top of my lace panties. Had I subconsciously put on the only sexy pair of knickers I owned this morning, in the hope he’d get to see them?
I shivered at the cool air on my lower back, and when he placed his warm palm there, I jumped.
“Skittish.” Adam’s voice echoed softly in the room.
He’d not got it wrong. I felt skittish and scared. Maybe about to bolt. But also so, so desperate all of a sudden for him to touch me more. He didn’t disappoint, and his hand smoothed across my lower back. He skirted the top of my panties and I shivered again, but not from the cold this time.
My nipples hardened under me, and I got the strongest urge to turn over. To feel his warm, strong hands touch me there.
I didn’t dare, though. It would look so…forward. Trouble was, when I’d been dating Roger, girls still waited for the guy to make the move. Cosmo magazine may have been full of confident career women, but in reality, we hadn’t been anywhere near as forward and confident as today’s young women.
“Turn over.”
Oh, crap. It wasn’t a request. More of a gentle command. As if in a dream, I did. I turned over and wiggled for a moment as I got comfortable and then stalled, my breath caught in my throat as Adam straddled me. A powerful thigh rested each side of my waist, and he stared down at me as if I were Marilyn Monroe, not plain old me.
“You’re so beautiful.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest, but he shook his head and gently moved them to my sides. “Don’t hide from me.”
Before I suffered any more agonies of self-consciousness, he bent down and kissed me. Once more, the connection I felt between us flared. I moaned into the sound, and he responded with a groan of his own. He traced my lips with his tongue, and I opened for him. As he deepened the kiss, I responded to him completely. He used one arm to slide under my back and pull me into him until we were chest-to-chest.
He broke away, breathing heavily. “Need to feel you.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant until he yanked his T-shirt over his head and pulled me back into his arms. Suddenly, we were skin-to-skin and it felt glorious.
He was warm, so warm. And hard. Wonderful, hard slabs of muscle that came covered in acres of tan skin molded to me. Something happened to me. Something I’d never experienced before. A hunger burst bright and demanding within me and chased away all my fears and doubts. It consumed me and left no room for anything else.
I needed him. In that moment, in the tiny cottage with the waves beating the shore outside, I needed this man with a ferocity bordering on madness.
I kicked the covers away from my lower half, and he looked down the bed and then back at me, his eyes hooded and dark.
With one last, hard kiss, he got off the bed and undid the fly on his jeans. He pushed them down his legs to reveal he wore black boxer briefs. And he was aroused. Very aroused.
As he straightened, I really took in his body. My mouth almost watered at the sight of him. He truly was beautiful. Utterly gorgeous.
He got back onto the bed and lay next to me, lazily running his fingers up and down my side, leaving goose bumps in his wake.
Somehow, we started kissing again and ended up in a tangle of limbs. His hands smoothed up and down my back, and my breasts pressed against his chest. He kissed my lips, my chin, my jaw, and then down my neck. Then he lowered his head farther and took an aching nipple into his mouth. The electric sharpness of the sensation made me arch off the bed with a gasp.
He laved at my aching flesh and then peppered a trail of kisses across my chest to my other stiff peak. He gave it the same treatment, and I squirmed and giggled at the overload of sensation.
I paused, worried I’d offended him with my laughter. But he lifted his head, and his eyes met mine and they were filled with warmth.
Then we were kissing again, and it became urgent and heated. He claimed my mouth as his to own and to
ok control in a way I’d never experienced before.
When his deft fingers trailed down my stomach to the top of my panties, I gave the tiniest hitch of my hips, giving him permission. He stroked me there, in my most sensitive place, and it felt so good. His fingers were sure and deft but gentle. He stroked me through the lacy fabric and kept kissing me and nibbling at my neck the whole while. It didn’t take long before I clung to him, panting as I grew close to an embarrassingly quick orgasm.
“Let go, Pamela. Come for me.” Adam continued to stroke me, never letting up his rhythm.
A few more moments, and I arched my back and came with a soft cry. He carried me through it, never letting up, and when it was over, he kissed me again. All need and want and hunger. It matched my own desire.
He’d taken care of me. Slaked my thirst, but still, I wanted more. I burned for him and it made no sense, but I didn’t care.
I writhed under him and pressed myself to him, trying to get closer.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said.
I had no idea why not. We were both consenting adults, after all.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he continued. “But I can’t bring myself to care. I’ve spent so long thinking about duty and what I should do. I want to forget it all.” He kissed my nose, my cheek, down to my lips, and then gave a soft bite to my ear.
I did something then, something so forward I shocked myself. I reached down, hooked my thumbs into the elastic of my panties, and pulled them down. Adam moved back to give me space to do so and watched with greedy eyes. Then he copied me and removed his own underwear.
I marveled at the size of him down there. And how perfect he looked. All smooth skin over hard flesh. He already had a drop of moisture gathering at his tip, and I loved how much I clearly turned him on. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit how much of a trip it was getting such a sexy man all hot and bothered.
Tentatively, I reached out and wrapped my hand around him. I had small hands, and they looked even more so wrapped around his straining flesh.
He groaned and thrust his hips upward. I took his hint and moved in time with his thrusts, building a rhythm. I loved how his face changed. How his lips parted and his eyelids lowered.
“Stop. If you don’t stop, I’ll come like this, and I need more.”
Need. Not want. He needed me. I throbbed and ached between my legs at his words. I needed more, too.
I opened my arms to him and pulled him into me, onto me. He came willingly and settled between my legs. A current passed between us. A moment of something akin to wonder. For me, at least. I’d only ever done this with one other person in my life.
Adam’s eyes went serious as he watched me. “Are you sure, Pam?”
I nodded and swallowed hard. I was so very sure. Apprehensive. Excited. Maybe even a little scared. But, oh so sure.
“I want you, Adam.”
His lips found mine again, and he began to kiss me as his erection nudged at my entrance. I widened my legs, and he pushed into me, slow and steady, but I still whimpered into his mouth. It had been a long time, and he wasn’t small. It hurt. Not a lot but enough to make me let loose that small noise.
He stopped moving but carried on kissing me. He left my lips and kissed my neck, something I loved, and as he nibbled and sucked at the skin there, I relaxed again. Only then did he move once more.
The discomfort slowly began to morph into something else. A deep pleasure, more elusive than the sharp pleasure he’d given me with his hands. Something forgotten and wonderful. I began to move, wanting more of the deep pleasure-pain he gave me.
Soon we found ourselves thrusting against one another. Two sweaty bodies in perfect sync, both battling for more, more, more. I dug my nails into his back, and he rewarded me with a groan that sounded almost like a growl.
“That’s it, make me yours.”
His words spurred me on, and I sucked and nibbled at his neck as he had at mine. We weren’t being quiet now; our bodies slapped together and our breath came in moans and grunts. There was something animalistic about the way we came together. It thrilled me and also scared me a little in its urgency.
Deft fingers once more found their way to my clitoris and stroked me there in time with our heated movements. I felt myself building toward a release again, but this one seemed to be so much more monumental than my earlier orgasm.
Like a wave, it gathered inside, building and threatening to wipe me out when it washed over me. And then the wave broke, and I came against Adam’s fingers and around his cock. My insides clenched over and over, and I chanted “Oh, my God” repeatedly.
Adam thrust hard and deep three more times and then held himself still within me.
Afterward, as we both let our breathing return to normal, he pulled me into him with his big arms and wrapped us so close together it became hard to tell where he ended and I began. I felt him still inside me. Our connection amazed me. It had never been this way for me.
Instead of pulling out, Adam gave little hitches of his hips every now and again, which sent tiny shock waves of pleasure coursing through me. He stroked my damp hair from my forehead and kissed me slow and deep.
I relished every moment. And still, despite the earth-shattering sex I’d just experienced, I wanted more of him. Like…almost like a thirst.
Adam lifted his head and looked at me, and his eyes were odd. Kind of lighter around the edges, but more intense too.
“I think I’ve gone and done something really stupid.”
His words hit me like an ice-cold wind. They slapped me and burned me with their coldness. He viewed me as a mistake? As a regret? Something stupid?
Something stupid. I’d been the stupid one. I never should have let him in.
“Get out.” I threw the covers back and pushed him off me.
“What?”
“You said it. We did something stupid. You’re right. Now, get out.”
“No. Wait a minute. Please, Pam, let me explain.”
I couldn’t, though. Couldn’t see how he’d ever be able to make those words okay. And anyway, this ended in a couple of days, and I already wanted to cry at the upcoming separation. I needed to cut and run now.
I stumbled out of the room, ignoring the heavy footsteps following me, and headed for the bathroom where I slammed the door shut. Locking it.
“Pam. Seriously? I was thinking aloud, but I didn’t mean it as you think. It’s…complicated. I need to explain.”
“No. Go away.” I rested my head against the door. Then I felt it. Oh, God, not now! Panic began to build inside me. Real, horrible, full-on panic. And no way would I allow this man to see me have a panic attack. He’d think it happened because of him and get the wrong idea, when it was the situation adding yet another layer of shittiness to my already epically shitty life.
I needed him gone so I could freak out. I knew my body by now. As I started to shake and my heart raced and pounded, I needed to scream into my pillow and cry. My therapist asked me to sit with the panic and see what lay beneath it, and I’d discovered it mostly housed rage. Rage at Roger, at my employers, but most of all at myself for being such a bloody pushover.
Wanting Adam gone before I gave in to the urge to cry and shout, I said the first thing to pop into my head.
“I want you to go. I can’t believe I let you touch me. Now leave this house right now, or…I’ll call the police. Just go. You make me sick.”
Silence. Cold, empty silence. And then footsteps, a heavy tread to the bedroom and then back along the landing, pausing by the bathroom door for a moment before moving away.
The moment the front door shut, I crumpled to the floor, stuffed my fists into my mouth and screamed into my knuckles as the tears fell. I wasn’t crying over him, but my own inability to deal with normal life. My own weakness.
In that moment, I truly hated myself.
Chapter Five
My bones ached, and my head throbbed. Everywhere hurt. I blinked open my eyes and groaned.
The bathroom floor pressed in cold and hard against my skin. No wonder I hurt so much. I’d fallen asleep on the blooming bathroom floor. Who did that? Me, obviously.
Stiff and sore, I grabbed hold of the side of the tub and pulled myself up. As I began to properly wake up and my mind came online, I flushed as I remembered my words to Adam.
Talk about an overreaction. But I hadn’t been in my right mind at the time. Panic tended to make me act in ways I never used to…before I started to suffer with the crippling anxiety attacks.
Sighing, I scrubbed my hand through my hair and opened the bathroom door. I needed to go and see my doctor when I got home. My meds obviously weren’t working too well, and I might need to adjust the dose. I did have my trusty Valium, of course, for if things got really out of hand, but you couldn’t always plan a panic attack. And normally, once they’d begun, I didn’t have the presence of mind to go get my Valium. My regular antidepressants worked well enough, if I had no stressors whatsoever, but the moment anything came up in life, the anxiety and panic came back full force.
If I couldn’t get control of it all, then how would I return to work? No work meant no pay, which equaled no money for the mortgage. I paused in the hallway, my mind shooting way into the future and showing me visions of myself homeless. Or living in some wreck of a shared house with a load of twenty-year-olds and relying on welfare to see me through.
Nausea began to swirl in my stomach, so I forced myself to get off the neurosis train and stop my mind running disaster-filled movie footage of a terrible future. I’d be fine. I’d go to the doctors, sort my meds, and get a new job.
I entered the kitchen and stopped short at a note propped up on the side by the kettle. I plucked it off the worktop and read it.
Pam – I am so sorry I upset you. I didn’t mean what I said in the way you took it, I can promise you as much. Hopefully, I will get to see you before our short break here is over and we both have to return to our lives. I don’t like to leave it this way.
Yours,
Adam
Nice note, but he wasn’t mine, was he? I’d shown myself quite incapable of a fling. I’d let my heart get involved far too early and easily. And yes, Adam wanted to make amends, but he’d still said those hurtful words. Part of me burned to understand what he’d really meant. But part of me wanted to walk away while I still held on to any sense of dignity.
