by Poppy Parkes
Her brow smooths and she turns back to the movie, smile growing.
I’ve done the right thing.
My ribs suddenly struggle to contain my heart. I tighten my grip, smoothing my thumb over the mountain range of her knuckles. Again there’s that clenching in my low belly when Hattie adjusts her grip to lace her fingers through mine.
The contraction in my abdomen intensifies, traveling south, and I feel myself grow hard. I realize all at once why the clenching was familiar, but only distantly — my cock hasn’t stood at attention for anyone or anything other than my own hand in years.
I wonder why it’s Hattie that I find myself attracted to, and why it took me two years of knowing her to come to this point. None of the very few other women I’ve dated since losing Julie have made me feel this way.
But then, I never got to watch them fall in love with Rory and teach her how to be brave in so many new ways.
Maybe that was what was missing — I was either too scared or not ready to even consider letting a woman into Rory’s life in the way a romantic partner would occupy it. But Hattie has more than proven herself to be trustworthy with my daughter’s heart, mind, and physical safety. And because I know that, my heart has had room for the silently sown seeds of affection for Hattie.
Rory and I are a package deal, and my daughter is my first priority — and Hattie knows and supports me and the rest of her Outdoor Adventure families in that.
And that in turn makes my heart pound for her all the more.
The movie plays on, full of near misses and meet-cutes, but my mind isn’t on the story. All I am and want to be aware of is the woman sitting at my side, her hand entwined with mine.
I give her hand a squeeze, eyes on the film. I can’t suppress the broad smile that streaks across my face when Hattie squeezes my hand back.
Hattie
When the credits roll, I briefly introduce Ben to Amelia, Tatum, Kate, and Harry before hauling him from his seat — and away from their curious eyes. I’m not ready to answer their questions yet, and I’m certainly not going to subject Ben to that on his first meeting with them.
Especially after I forgot to tell him that they were going to the movies with us. I cringe again at my fuck-up.
Outside, the cool night air washes over my skin. It should feel uncomfortably cold for what I’m wearing, but it soothes me.
We walk to my truck, but when we get there, I don’t want to get in. I turn to Ben, taking in his grizzled jaw, the few silver threads in his thick brown hair and the way the corners of his eyes turn upward when he looks back at me.
The movie is over, but I’m not ready for the night to end.
I consider telling Ben that. My heart throbs in my throat.
He’s probably only here to be nice, I tell myself. And there’s Rory to think about. It wouldn’t be fair to weave my way deeper into their family if I’m not even sure what I want.
So I swallow my words and opt for the safety of an innocuous query. “What’d you think of the movie?”
I’m surprised to see Ben wince, a sheepish grin creeping over his face. “The guy got the girl, right?”
“Yes.” I cock my head to the side, confused. “Did you fall asleep and miss the end?”
“No.” His words come slow, as if he’s weighing each syllable before letting them fall from his lips. “But I was distracted.”
I frown, stomach seizing up at the thought that Ben didn’t want to accompany me to the movies after all. “By what?” The question is a rough whisper.
Ben steps toward me, and he’s all that my eyes choose to see. His green eyes blaze into mine but his hands shake. I gulp deep breaths of his scent that reminds me of bark and grass and the windy blue skies of early spring.
He reaches out as if to trace a thumb down the line of my jaw, but then decides against it. I’m surprised by the little sigh of disappointment that escapes me.
“I was distracted,” he says, eyes burning with fear and something else — something that makes my thighs press together and my skin ache to be touched — “by the girl sitting next to me.”
Now it’s not my heart that’s throbbing, it’s my nether regions. Because Ben just gave voice to my feelings, making them that much more alive and real.
“You were?” I breathe. I’m trembling too, and it has nothing to do with the night’s chill.
He nods. “But I’m worried.”
“About what?”
Ben drops his eyes and hauls in a deep breath. When he releases his exhalation, it’s worn and ragged. For the first time I can see for the weight of so many years of being a widower and single father. “I’m worried about overstepping my bounds. I’m worried about pushing away the role model my daughter loves so dearly.”
He looks at me again, letting me see his confusion and pain, and it makes me want to take him in my arms and chase it away any way that I can.
Then there’s a spark and his green eyes are afire once more. “But most of all,” he says, a low rumble entering his voice and making my insides turn to jelly, “I’m worried that the woman I find myself falling for might not want me.”
My chest is heaving and my tongue gropes for words. “The woman you’re — you’re falling for?” I echo. I know what I want those words to mean, but I need to hear the truth of them from him.
“I don’t know why this is happening now, Hattie.” My name on his lips makes my throat clutch. “But I think —“ He breaks off, steadies himself with a breath, then presses on. “I think that I’m falling in love with you.”
I close my eyes, letting his words spiral around and into me, making my chest fill with gentle wind and sunshine.
It’s not just me.
I’m not crazy.
And Ben wants me the way I’ve found myself wanting him.
I open my eyes, smiling through unexpected tears at the man standing before me, fear on his face and his heart held out for the taking.
“Hattie?”
I close the space that remains between us, studying the lines around his eyes, the way the smooth skin on the apples of his cheeks contrasts with the stubble growing over his jaw. I open my mouth to reply and my voice does not comply.
Ben’s eyes rove my face. “Tell me you feel the same way about me?” He grimaces. “Or tell me to go to hell if I’m wrong.”
I shake my head. “No,” I murmur. “You’re not wrong.” The words are a whisper, but they’re there.
The muscles of his jaw and neck flex, gaze ravenous. “You’re here with me?”
“I feel it too. And I don’t know why now either.”
“But . . . you’re not sorry about it?” he insists. I can feel the heat of his body, the power of his presence. How have I never noticed this before?
“I’m not sorry.” I run my fingers down the sleeve of his jacket, taking pleasure from how he first flinches at and then, an instant later, leans into the touch. “Not now that I know I’m not alone.”
My touch cuts the chains of his hesitation. Ben takes my face in both hands. I close my eyes, savoring the manly roughness of his fingers against my cheeks.
“You’re very much not alone,” Ben says so fiercely that I can practically feel the heat of his words.
His fire kindles my own. Fear gives way and I raise my eyes to his. “Show me,” I challenge, the corners of my lips curling to the night sky. I use his words. “Show me that you’re here with me.”
His lips mirror mine, curving upward at the corners, but there’s steel in Ben’s eyes. He pushes me against the cool metal of my truck, pressing his body over mine, and conquers my mouth with his.
I thought it might feel shocking to experience Rory’s father in this new way. But instead, it feels so damn right, like everything I didn’t know I needed.
Wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, I demand more closeness. My lanky body fits perfectly with his seasoned form and it sets my core nagging for more.
More of the beautiful, d
evouring kisses he’s claiming me with.
More of his hands raking down my torso.
More of how his hardness pushes through our clothes against my hungry opening.
I swivel my hips against Ben’s cock and he rewards me with a groan. He pulls away to watch me as I spiral my slit against him. I break my rhythm to thrust my pelvis at him. His eyes shutter. “Oh my god,” he groans.
Grinning wickedly, I nip at his neck. His eyes snap back open, emerald orbs on fire. One of his eyebrows twitches with his own mischief and he shoves a hand between us. Insistent fingers knead at the crotch of my jeans, probing my lips, my opening, and finally, exquisitely, my clit.
I rock my head back onto the side of the truck, a cadence of sighs escaping my open mouth as I give myself over to Ben’s touch.
“You’re perfect,” he murmurs before kissing my arched sternum.
Some of my past partners, mostly the male ones, called me perfect. But none of them uttered the words with the reverence and visceral sincerity that Ben does.
Wrapping my legs more tightly around him, I lift my head and catch his face in my hands. Our tongues explore each other’s mouths, tasting and nudging and needing.
And I think that Ben is wrong.
It’s not me that’s perfect.
It’s us.
The truth of this realization reverberates through my bones, along my nerves, and I give myself over to it — to him — like I never have in my life before.
Ben
When I lost Julie, it became scathingly clear early on that her death was an axis. There was before and there was after, and the after depended on whatever way life spun on the turning point that was her death. I was aware of this throughout her sickness and dying and my mourning of her. As much as I hated it, I believe that this awareness saved me from floundering in despair, which would have been so easy to do.
Being with Hattie feels much the same, except with reckless joy and pleasure instead of grief and sadness.
There was a before, and there will be an after, and the hinge that it all turns on is this moment as I push Hattie’s top up and palm her petite breasts.
I roll her nipple between my fingers, mouth on her neck. My erection speaks to me like it’s a separate entity, howling for more and more and more.
And even though my cock seems to have a life of its own, I want to give it everything it demands.
A detached part of my brain muses that it would be so much more chivalrous to take this young thing home, to romance her before taking all that she has to give me.
But all I can think about is joining my body with hers, here and now.
From the way she clutches at me with her athletic thighs, I’m not the only one who feels this way.
“God, I want you.” I whisper my words to her collarbone. She shivers against them, tiny goosebumps appearing where my breath washes over her skin. I nip at them with my teeth, earning myself a jagged groan.
“Then take me,” she rasps, eyes alight with challenge as they find mine. “I’m all yours.”
For all that I wanted to hear just that, her dare still takes me aback. “Here?” I ask, needing to be absolutely clear. “Now?”
Hattie finds her feet, digging in her pocket. “Here.” She finds her keys and unlocks the truck, never taking her gaze from mine. “Now.”
She opens the door and climbs into the bench seat that spreads behind the driver and front passenger seats. Tossing her keys to the floor, she slides to the far side of the bench and peels her shirt over her head, throwing it to the floor as well.
There’s no question, no hesitation.
I’m on her like a ravenous animal, all heat and teeth and touch and need. Some last shred of civility compels me to close and lock the door behind me, but then I am lost to my wanting.
No, that’s not quite right — I’m lost to our mutual desire.
Because Hattie’s right there with me, mewling and sucking, rolling her body beneath mine, our breath loud in my ears.
She sits up to divest me of my jacket and shirt, discarding them with hers. Then she presses her bare torso to mine and gently twists her fingers in the curls covering my chest. I shudder when she arches her hips up and presses her wide open thighs over my hardness. Her advances make my dick weep with both joy and unmet greed.
To distract myself, I shove my hand between us and press up into the jeans covering her crotch. Hattie gasps when I find her clit, withdrawing only to lever herself more firmly against my fingers.
She doesn’t last long before she pulls away, desperately grappling with the opening of her jeans. “More,” she pants as she pulls her denims off, swiftly sending her panties in their wake. “I need more.”
And then there she is, the woman who has cared for and championed my daughter more dearly than I’ve had any right to expect, fully naked before my eyes.
Fuck. I’m either a very lucky man or a very bad man.
Hoping to hell that I’m the former, I dive between her thighs face first. Hattie’s upper back hits the window with a soft thud that’s nearly drowned out by the noises I’m pulling from her throat with my tongue. I drink in her musky scent like a man drowning as I burrow through her down to gain unadulterated access to her most sensitive nub.
I find her clit and take it carefully between my teeth. I roll and tug on it, my hands clamping her hips to the seat as her pelvis bucks in response. Her breath shreds as I release her nub and lick and swirl my tongue over it, my cock singing in my pants as I bring her higher and higher.
She lifts her hips from the seat in spite of all the power I’m putting into holding her in place, and then she shatters.
Her orgasm is loud and long, and the sweetest goddamn music to my ears. I can feel her labia opening and clamping beneath my mouth, clit pulsing in time with them. Her fingers find my hair, tangling in it while she pushes my face harder into her opening.
If I thought I was aroused and ready before, that was nothing compared to how driving Hattie to the frenzied peak of orgasm makes me feel. My balls are wound tight, quivering with the need for release, sweat pooling between my shoulder blades. My heart is a storm, and my dick demands to be released from its prison.
So when Hattie’s body steadies and her hands fumble at my belt, setting my manhood free, and her mouth forms the word, “More,” I pounce on her with a roar I did not know I was capable of.
I kick off my pants and boxers, needing nothing between our bodies. I push her onto her back, align my impatient shaft with her sopping opening and, with a growl, make two become one.
Hattie
I’ve had sex in this truck more times than I can count.
But it’s never felt like this — like Ben is putting every wrong that’s in me back to rights.
When he buries himself in me, both of us voicing coarse cries as one, it’s not just a physical ache he meets. The sensation of his hardness thrusting into me reaches up into my core and skips from rib to rib before finding its way to my heart.
I feel like he’s touching my soul.
And before this moment, I didn’t even know if I believed in souls.
Ben makes me an ardent believer in everything that is sweat and heat and touch and him. I am an acolyte of the exquisite shattering of my heart to allow him to enter where no grown man has before.
His fingers find the vulnerable expanse of my throat, tracing the ridged path of my windpipe with a touch that’s as gentle as it is possessive.
I claim you, his touch tells me. Let me care for you.
I come, harder and faster than ever before, crying out while twin tears trail from my eyes.
He notices, freezing. “Are you okay?” He’s breathless from our love-making, voice hoarse with passion, but the concern in his eyes is genuine.
I gulp air and nod, finding words suddenly difficult.
Still embedded in my velvet tunnel, he reaches for my face and wipes the two tears away. “You’re crying.” He tastes my tears, closing his eyes to
relish them, then opens them again to look at me sternly. “Tell me why?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Your face tells me otherwise.”
“It’s just — this — you . . .” I struggle to find the right words. “It’s so different. So wonderful.” I shake my head. “They’re happy tears.”
The crease on his forehead smooths. He begins to rock his hips, slow and tender, so that he’s riding my clit more than he is moving in and out of me. “I’m glad. I feel the same.”
I snake my hands around his neck, massaging the flexed muscles I find there with my thumb. “Why did it take us so long to get here?” I murmur, rolling my hips to match his languid rhythm. “We’ve known each other for two years, give or take.”
A smile teases at his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe we weren’t ready. But,” he punctuates the syllable with a powerful thrust that makes my back arch and my inner walls contract with pleasure, “if two years is what it took for us to come to this moment, then I consider none of it lost time.”
Another strong thrust, one that tears a groan from my throat. I wrap my legs around Ben’s low back, pushing my hips up into him so his length hits just the right spot to make my toes curl and my head fall back.
My walls begin to cave in on themselves, and now it’s Ben who moans. We both feel my orgasm cresting. I clasp myself to his upper body so my torso lifts from the seat.
I gasp and cry out as arousal coils tight in my low belly, then rips free and sends me crashing over the precipice of another climax.
Ben pushes himself into me again and again, his pace frenetic, all rhythm lost to his need to follow me as I fall to pieces. His cries fill my ears as he buries himself deep in me one final time.
I feel him pulsing inside me. His twitching cock nudges me even higher toward a fresh climax that makes my skin sing and my ears ring.
I hold onto Ben for dear life. His warmth grounds me even as his touch drives me into a shuddering, wailing orgasm that splits my heart wide open to everything that he has to offer me.
